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The 
Book of Wonder 



A Chronicle of Little Adventures 
at the Edge of the World 



BY 



ZjOr^ Dunsany 

With Illustrations by 

S. H. SIME 



-V". 



BOSTON 
JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY 






^'>V 



u 



JAN 2* 151? 



^ 



JAN 19 1917 



Acknowledgments 

My thanks are due to the Editor of 
The Sketch for permission to reprint here 
twelve of these tales, which as ^^ Epi- 
sodes from The Book of Wonder" were 
printed in his columns. Many were 
abbreviated to suit the exigencies of the 
Paper and are here given in full. 

I again offer my thanks to the Editor 
of The Saturday Review for-- permission to 
reprint tales, the two last in the book. 



Preface 



Come with me, ladies and gentlemen 
who are in any wise weary of London: 
come with me: and those that tire at all 
of the world we know: for we have new 
worlds here. 



Contents 



PAGE 

The Bride of the Man-Horse . . 1 

Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the 

Jeweller 11 

The House of the Sphinx ... 20 

Probable Adventure of the Three 

Literary Men 27 

The Injudicious Prayers of Pombo the 

Idolater 36 

The Loot of Bombasharna ... 45 

Miss Cubbidge and the Dragon of 

Romance 55 

The Quest of the Queen's Tears . . 62 

The Hoard of the Gibbelins ... 74 

How Nuth would have Practised his 

Art upon the Gnoles ... 84 

How One came, as was foretold, to the 

City of Never 95 

The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap 105 

Chu-bu and Sheemish 115 

The Wonderful Window .... 124 




The Edge of the World 



List of Illustrations 



The Edge of the World . 


Frontispiece ^ 


Zretazoola .... Facing 


page 1 ^ 


The Ominous Cough 




11 


The House of the Sphinx . 




20*^ 


"I Wish I Knew More About 






THE Ways of Queens '* . 




54 


He Felt as a Morsel . 




IV 


There the Gibbelins Lived and 






Discreditably Fed . 




75 


The Lean, High House op the 






Gnoles .... 




94 


The City op Never 




100* 


The Coronation op Mr. Thomas 






Shap 




114 




Zretazoola 



The Bride of the 
Man-Horse 




n the morning of his two 
hundred and fiftieth year 
Shepperalk the centaur went 
to the golden coffer, wherein 
the treasure of the centaurs 
was, and taking from it the hoarded 
amulet that his father, Jyshak, in the 
years of his prime, had hammered from 
mountain gold and set with opals bar- 
tered from the gnomes, he put it upon 
his wrist, and said no word, but walked 
from his mother^s cavern. And he took 
with him too that clarion of the centaurs, 
that famous silver horn, that in its time 
had summoned to surrender seventeen 
cities of Man, and for twenty years had 
brayed at star-girt walls in the Siege of 
Tholdenblarna, the citadel of the gods, 
what time the centaurs waged their 

1 The Bride of the 

Man- Horse 



The Book ^f Wonder 

fabulous war and were not broken by any 
force of arms, but retreated slowly in a 
cloud of dust before the final miracle of 
the gods that They brought in Their des- 
perate need from Their ultimate armoury. 
He took it and strode away, and his 
mother only sighed and let him go. 

She knew that to-day he would not 
drink at the stream coming down from 
the terraces of Varpa Niger, the inner 
land of the mountains, that to-day he 
would not wonder awhile at the sunset 
and afterwards trot back to the cavern 
again to sleep on rushes pulled by rivers 
that know not Man. She knew that it 
was with him as it had been of old with 
his father, and with Goom the father of 
Jyshak, and long ago with the gods. 
Therefore she only sighed and let him go. 

But he, coming out from the cavern 
that was his home, went for the first time 
over the little stream, and going round the 
corner of the crags saw glittering beneath 
him the mundane plain. And the wind of 
the autumn that was gilding the world, 
rushing up the slopes of the mountain, 

The Bride of the ^ 

Man- Horse 



The Book of Wonder 

beat cold on his naked flanks. He raised 
his head and snorted. 

^'I am a man-horse now! " he shouted 
aloud; and leaping from crag to crag he 
galloped by valley and chasm, by tor- 
rent-bed and scar of avalanche, until he 
came to the wandering leagues of the 
plain, and left behind him for ever the 
Athraminaurian mountains. 

His goal was Zretazoola, the city of 
Sombelene. What legend of Sombelene's 
inhuman beauty or of the wonder of 
her mystery had ever floated over the 
mundane plain to the fabulous cradle of 
the centaurs' race, the Athraminaurian 
mountains, I do not know. Yet in the 
blood of man there is a tide, an old sea- 
current rather, that is somehow akin to 
the twilight, which brings him rumours 
of beauty from however far away, as 
driftwood is found at sea from islands 
not yet discovered: and this spring-tide 
or current that visits the blood of man 
comes from the fabulous quarter of his 
lineage, from the legendary, the old; it 
takes him out to the woodlands, out to 

3 The Bride of the 

Man- Horse 



The Book of Wonder 

the hills; he listens to ancient song. So 
it may be that Shepperalk^s fabulous 
blood stirred in those lonely mountains 
away at the edge of the world to rumours 
that only the airy twilight knew and 
only confided secretly to the bat, for 
Shepperalk was more legendary even 
than man. Certain it was that he 
headed from the first for the city of 
Zretazoola, where Sombelene in her 
temple dwelt; though all the mundane 
plain, its rivers and mountains, lay between 
Shepperalk's home and the city he sought. 
When first the feet of the centaur 
touched the grass of that soft alluvial 
earth he blew for joy upon the silver horn, 
he pranced and caracoled, he gambolled 
over the leagues; pace came to him like 
a maiden with a lamp, a new and beauti- 
ful wonder; the wind laughed as it 
passed him. He put his head down low 
to the scent of the flowers, he lifted it 
up to be nearer the unseen stars, he 
revelled through kingdoms, took rivers 
in his stride; how shall I tell you, ye 
that dwell in cities, how shall I tell 

The Bride of the 4 

Man- Horse 



The Book of Wonder 

you what he felt as he galloped? He 
felt for strength like the towers of Bel- 
Narana; for lightness like those gossa- 
mer palaces that the fairy-spider builds 
'twixt heaven and sea along the coasts 
of Zith; for swiftness like some bird 
racing up from the morning to sing in 
some city's spires before daylight comes. 
He was the sworn companion of the 
wind. For joy he was as a song; the 
lightnings of his legendary sires, the 
earlier gods, began to mix with his blood; 
his hooves thundered. He came to the 
cities of men, and all men trembled, for 
they remembered the ancient mythical 
wars, and now they dreaded new battles 
and feared for the race of man. Not by 
Clio are these wars recorded, history 
does not know them, but what of that? 
Not all of us have sat at historians' 
feet, but all have learned fable and 
myth at their mothers' knees. And 
there were none that did not fear strange 
wars when they saw Shepperalk swerve 
and leap along the public ways. So he 
passed from city to city. 

5 The Bride of the 

Man- Horse 



The Book of Wonder 

By night he lay down unpanting in 
the reeds of some marsh or a forest; 
before dawn he rose trimnphant, and 
hugely drank of some river in the dark, 
and splashing out of it would trot to 
some high place to find the sunrise, and 
to send echoing eastwards the exultant 
greetings of his jubilant horn. And lo! 
the sunrise coming up from the echoes, 
and the plains new-lit by the day, and 
the leagues spinning by like water flung 
from a top, and that gay companion, 
the loudly laughing wind, and men and 
the fears of men and their little cities; 
and, after that, great rivers and waste 
spaces and huge new hills, and then new 
lands beyond them, and more cities of 
men, and always the old companion, the 
glorious wind. Kingdom by kingdom 
slipt by, and still his breath was even. 
''It is a golden thing to gallop on good 
turf in one's youth,'' said the young 
man-horse, the centaur. ''Ha, ha," said 
the wind of the hills, and the winds of 
the plain answered. 

Bells pealed in frantic towers, wise 

The Bride of the g 

Man- Horse 



The Book of Wonder 

men consulted parchments, astrologers 
sought of the portent from the stars, the 
aged made subtle prophecies. '^Is he 
not swift?'' said the young. '^How glad 
he is," said children. 

Night after night brought him sleep, 
and day after day lit his gallop, till he 
came to the lands of the Athalonian men 
who live by the edges of the mundane 
plain, and from them he came to the 
lands of legend again such as those in 
which he was cradled on the other side 
of the world, and which fringe the marge 
of the world and mix with the twilight. 
And there a mighty thought came into 
his untired heart, for he knew that he 
neared Zretazoola now, the city of 
Sombelene. 

It was late in the day when he neared 
it, and clouds coloured with evening 
rolled low on the plain before him; he 
galloped on into their golden mist, and 
when it hid from his eyes the sight of 
things, the dreams in his heart awoke 
and romantically he pondered all those 
rumours that used to come to him from 

7 The Bride of the 

Man- Hors^ 



The Book of Wonder 

Sombelene, because of the fellowship of 
fabulous things. She dwelt (said eve- 
ning secretly to the bat) in a little temple 
by a lone lake-shore. A grove of cy- 
presses screened her from the city, from 
Zretazoola of the climbing ways. And 
opposite her temple stood her tomb, her 
sad lake-sepulchre with open door, lest 
her amazing beauty and the centuries of 
her youth should ever give rise to the 
heresy among men that lovely Som- 
belene was immortal : for only her beauty 
and her lineage were divine. 

Her father had been half centaur and 
half god; her mother was the child of a 
desert lion and that sphinx that watches 
the pyramids; — she was more mystical 
than Woman. 

Her beauty was as a dream, was as 
a song; the one dream of a lifetime 
dreamed on enchanted dews, the one 
song sung to some city by a deathless 
bird blown far from his native coasts by 
storm in Paradise. Dawn after dawn on 
mountains of romance or twilight after 
twilight could never equal her beauty; 

The Bride of the 3 

iilan-Hors? 



The Book of Wonder 

all the glow-worms had not the secret 
among them nor all the stars of night; 
poets had never sung it nor evening 
guessed its meaning; the morning envied 
it, it was hidden from lovers. 

She was unwed, unwooed. 

The lions came not to woo her be- 
cause they feared her strength, and the 
gods dared not love her because they 
knew she must die. 

This was what evening had whispered 
to the bat, this was the dream in the 
heart of Shepperalk as he cantered blind 
through the mist. And suddenly there at 
his hooves in the dark of the plain ap- 
peared the cleft in the legendary lands, 
and Zretazoola sheltering in the cleft, 
and sunning herself in the evening. 

Swiftly and craftily he bounded down 
by the upper end of the cleft, and enter- 
ing Zretazoola by the outer gate which 
looks out sheer on the stars, he galloped 
suddenly down the narrow streets. Many 
that rushed out on to balconies as he 
went clattering by, many that put their 
heads from glittering windows, are told 

9 The Bride of the 

Man- aoTse 



The Book of Wonder 

of in olden song. Shepperalk did not 
tarry to give greetings or to answer 
challenges from martial towers, he was 
down through the earthward gateway 
like the thunderbolt of his sires, and, 
like Leviathan who has leapt at an 
eagle, he surged into the water between 
temple and tomb. 

He galloped with half-shut eyes up 
the temple-steps, and, only seeing dimly 
through his lashes, seized Sombelene by 
the hair, undazzled as yet by her beauty, 
and so haled her away; and, leaping 
with her over the floorless chasm where 
the waters of the lake fall unremembered 
away into a hole in the world, took her 
we know not where, to be her slave for 
all those centuries that are allowed to 
his race. 

Three blasts he gave as he went upon 
that silver horn that is the world-old 
treasin*e of the centaurs. These were his 
wedding bells. 



The Bride of the XO 

Man- Horse 




The Ominous Cough 




Distressing Tale 

of Thangohrind 
the Jeweller 

;hen Thangobrind the jewel- 
ler heard the ominous 
cough, he turned at once 
upon that narrow way. A 
thief was he, of very high 
repute, being patronised by the lofty and 
elect, for he stole nothing smaller than 
the Moomoo^s egg, and in all his life 
stole only four kinds of stone — the ruby, 
the diamond, the emerald, and the sap- 
phire; and, as jewellers go, his honesty 
was great. Now there was a Merchant 
Prince who had come to Thangobrind 
and had offered his daughter's soul for 
the diamond that is larger than the 
human head and was to be found on 
the lap of the spider-idol, Hlo-hlo, in his 

XI Distressing Tale of 

Thangobrind the Jeweller 



The Book of Wonder 

temple of Moung-ga-ling; for he had 
heard that Thangobrind was a thief to 
be trusted. 

Thangobrind oiled his body and 
slipped out of his shop, and went secretly 
through byways, and got as far as Snarp, 
before anybody knew that he was out 
on business again or missed his sword 
from its place under the counter. Thence 
he moved only by night, hiding by day 
and rubbing the edges of his sword, 
which he called Mouse because it was 
swift and nimble. The jeweller had 
subtle methods of travelling; nobody saw 
him cross the plains of Zid; nobody saw 
him come to Mursk or Tlun. 0, but he 
loved shadows! Once the moon peeping 
out unexpectedly from a tempest had 
betrayed an ordinary jeweller; not so 
did it undo Thangobrind: the watchmen 
only saw a crouching shape that snarled 
and laughed: ^^ Tis but a hyena,'' they 
said. Once in the city of Ag one of the 
guardians seized him, but Thangobrind 
was oiled and slipped from his hand; 
you scarcely heard his bare feet patter 

Distressing Tale of 12 

Thangobrind the Jeweller 



The Book of Wonder 

away. He knew that the Merchant 
Prince awaited his return, his Uttle eyes 
open all night and glittering with greed; 
he knew how his daughter lay chained 
up and screaming night and day. Ah, 
Thangobrind knew. And had he not 
been out on business he had almost al- 
lowed himself one or two little laughs. 
But business was business, and the dia- 
mond that he sought still lay on the 
lap of Hlo-hlo, where it had been for 
the last two million years since Hlo-hlo 
created the world and gave unto it all 
things except that precious stone called 
Dead Man's Diamond. The jewel was 
often stolen, but it had a knack of com- 
ing back again to the lap of Hlo-hlo. 
Thangobrind knew this, but he was no 
common jeweller and hoped to outwit 
Hlo-hlo, perceiving not the trend of am- 
bition and lust and that they are vanity. 
How nimbly he threaded his way 
through the pits of Snood! — now like a 
botanist, scrutinising the ground; now 
like a dancer, leaping from crumbling 
edges, It was quite dark when he went 

13 Distressing Tale of 

Thangobrind the Jeweller 



The Book of Wonder 

by the towers of Tor, where archers shoot 
ivory arrows at strangers lest any for- 
eigner should alter their laws, which are 
bad, but not to be altered by mere 
aliens. At night they shoot by the sound 
of the strangers' feet. 0, Thangobrind, 
Thangobrind, was ever a jeweller like 
you! He dragged two stones behind him 
by long cords, and at these the archers 
shot. Tempting indeed was the snare 
that they set in Woth, the emeralds 
loose-set in the city's gate; but Thango- 
brind discerned the golden cord that 
climbed the wall from each and the 
weights that would topple upon him if 
he touched one, and so he left them, 
though he left them weeping, and at last 
came to Theth. There all men worship 
Hlo-hlo; though they are willing to be- 
lieve in other gods, as missionaries attest, 
but only as creatures of the chase for 
the hunting of Hlo-hlo, who wears Their 
halos, so these people say, on golden 
hooks along his hunting-belt. And from 
Theth he came to the city of Moung and 
the temple of Moung-ga-ling, and entered 

Distressing Tale of 14 

Thangobrind the Jeweller 



The Book of Wonder 

and saw the spider-idol, Hlo-hlo, sitting 
there with Dead Man's Diamond ghtter- 
ing on his lap, and looking for all the 
world like a full moon, but a full moon 
seen by a lunatic who had slept too long 
in its rays, for there was in Dead Man's 
Diamond a certain sinister look and a 
boding of things to happen that are 
better not mentioned here. The face of 
the spider-idol was lit by that fatal 
gem; there was no other light. In spite 
of his shocking limbs and that demoniac 
body, his face was serene and apparently 
unconscious. 

A little fear came into the mind of 
Thangobrind the jeweller, a passing 
tremor — no more; business was business 
and he hoped for the best. Thangobrind 
offered honey to Hlo-hlo and prostrated 
himself before him. Oh, he was cunning! 
When the priests stole out of the dark- 
ness to lap up the honey they were 
stretched senseless on the temple floor, 
for there was a drug in the honey that 
was offered to Hlo-hlo. And Thango- 
brind the jeweller picked Dead Man's 

15 Distressing Tale of 

Thangobrind the Jeweller 



The Book of Wonder 

Diamond up and put it on his shoulder 
and trudged away from the shrine; and 
Hlo-hlo the spider-idol said nothing at 
all, but he laughed softly as the jeweller 
shut the door. When the priests awoke 
out of the grip of the drug that was 
offered with the honey to Hlo-hlo, they 
rushed to a little secret room with an 
outlet on the stars and cast a horoscope 
of the thief. Something that they saw 
in the horoscope seemed to satisfy the 
priests. 

It was not like Thangobrind to go 
back by the road by which he had come. 
No, he went by another road, even 
though it led to the narrow way, night- 
house and spider-forest. 

The city of Moung went towering up 
behind him, balcony above balcony, 
eclipsing half the stars, as he trudged 
away with his diamond. He was not easy 
as he trudged away. Though when a 
soft pittering as of velvet feet arose 
behind him he refused to acknowledge 
that it might be what he feared, yet the 
instincts of his trade told him that it is 

Distressing Tale of \Q 

Thangobrind the Jeweller 



The Book of Wonder 

not well when any noise whatever follows 
a diamond by night, and this was one 
of the largest that had ever come to him 
in the way of business. When he came 
to the narrow way that leads to spider- 
forest, Dead Man's Diamond feeling 
cold and heavy, and the velvety footfall 
seeming fearfully close, the jeweller 
stopped and almost hesitated. He looked 
behind him; there was nothing there. 
He listened attentively; there was no 
sound now. Then he thought of the 
screams of the Merchant Prince's daugh- 
ter, whose soul was the diamond's price, 
and smiled and went stoutly on. There 
watched him, apathetically, over the 
narrow way, that grim and dubious 
woman whose house is the Night. Than- 
gobrind, hearing no longer the sound of 
suspicious feet, felt easier now. He was 
all but come to the end of the narrow 
way, when the woman listlessly uttered 
that ominous cough. 

The cough was too full of meaning to 
be disregarded. Thangobrind turned 
round and saw at once what he feared. 

17 Distressing Tale of 

Thangobrind the Jeweller 



The Book of Wonder 

The spider-idol had not stayed at home. 
The jeweller put his diamond gently 
upon the ground and drew his sword 
called Mouse. And then began that 
famous fight upon the narrow way in 
which the grim old woman whose house 
was Night seemed to take so little inter- 
est. To the spider-idol you saw at once 
it was all a horrible joke. To the jeweller 
it was grim earnest. He fought and 
panted and was pushed back slowly 
along the narrow way, but he wounded 
Hlo-hlo all the while with terrible long 
gashes all over his deep, soft body till 
Mouse was slimy with blood. But at 
last the persistent laughter of Hlo-hlo 
was too much for the jeweller's nerves, 
and, once more wounding his demoniac 
foe, he sank aghast and exhausted by the 
door of the house called Night at the 
feet of the grim old woman, who having 
uttered once that ominous cough inter- 
fered no further with the course of 
events. And there carried Thangobrind 
the jeweller away those whose duty it 
was, to the house where the two men 

Distressing Tale of Ig 

Thangobrind the Jeweller 



The Book of Wonder 

hang, and taking down from his hook 
the left-hand one of the two, they put 
that venturous jeweller in his place; so 
that there fell on him the doom that he 
feared, as all men know though it is so 
long since, and there abated somewhat 
the ire of the envious gods. 

And the only daughter of the Mer- 
chant Prince felt so little gratitude for 
this great deliverance that she took to 
respectability of a militant kind, and 
became aggressively dull, and called her 
home the English Riviera, and had 
platitudes worked in worsted upon her 
tea-cosy, and in the end never died, but 
passed away at her residence. 



19 Distressing Tate of 

Thangobrind the Jeweller 




The House of 
the Sphinx 

?hen I came to the House 
of the Sphinx it was al- 
ready dark. They made 
me eagerly welcome. And 
I, in spite of the deed, was 
glad of any shelter from ^hat ominous 
wood. I saw at once that there had 
been a deed, although a cloak did all 
that a cloak may do to conceal it. The 
mere uneasiness of the welcome made 
me suspect that cloak. 

The Sphinx was moody and silent. I 
had not come to pry into the secrets of 
Eternity nor to investigate the Sphinx's 
private life, and so had Httle to say and 
few questions to ask; but to whatever I 
did say she remained morosely indiffer- 
ent. It was clear that either she sus- 
pected me of being in search of the 
secrets of one of her gods, or of being 

The House of 20 

the Sphinx 




The House of the Sphinx 



The Book of IVonder 

boldly inquisitive about her traffic with 
Time, or else she was darkly absorbed 
with brooding upon the deed. 

I saw soon enough that there was 
another than me to welcome; I saw it 
from the hurried way that they glanced 
from the door to the deed and back to 
the door again. And it was clear that 
the welcome was to be a bolted door. 
But such bolts, and such a door! Rust 
and decay and fungus had been there far 
too long, and it was not a barrier any 
longer that would keep out even a de- 
termined wolf. And it seemed to be 
something worse than a wolf that they 
feared. 

A little later on I gathered from what 
they said that some imperious and 
ghastly thing was looking for the Sphinx, 
and that something that had happened 
had made its arrival certain. It ap- 
peared that they had slapped the Sphinx 
to vex her out of her apathy in order 
that she should pray to one of her gods, 
whom she had littered in the house of 
, Time; but her moody silence was invinci- 

21 The House of 

the Sphinx 



The Book of Wonder 

ble, and her apathy Oriental, ever 
since the deed had happened. And when 
they found that they could not make 
her pray, there was nothing for them to 
do but to pay Uttle useless attentions to 
the rusty lock of the door, and to look 
at the deed and wonder, and even pre- 
tend to hope, and to say that after all 
it might not bring that destined thing 
from the forest, which no one named. 

It may be said I had chosen a grue- 
some house, but not if I had described 
the forest from which I came, and I 
was in need of any spot wherein I could 
rest my mind from the thought of it. 

I wondered very much what thing 
would come from the forest on account 
of the deed; and having seen that forest 
— as you, gentle reader, have not — I 
had the advantage of knowing that any- 
thing might come. It was useless to ask 
the Sphinx — she seldom reveals things, 
like her paramour Time (the gods take 
after her), and while this mood was on 
her, rebuff was certain. So I quietly 
began to oil the lock of the door. And as 

The House of 22 

the Sphinx 



The Book of Wonder 

soon as they saw this simple act I won 
their confidence. It was not that my 
work was of any use — it should have 
been done long before; but they saw that 
my interest was given for the moment 
to the thing that they thought vital. 
They clustered round me then. They 
asked me what I thought of the door, 
and whether I had seen better, and 
whether I had seen worse; and I told 
them about all the doors I knew, and 
said that the doors of the baptistery in 
Florence were better doors, and the 
doors made by a certain firm of builders 
in London were worse. And then I asked 
them what it was that was coming after 
the Sphinx because of the deed. And at 
first they would not say, and I stopped 
oiling the door; and then they said that 
it was the arch-inquisitor of the forest, 
who is investigator and avenger of all 
silvestrian things; and from all that they 
said about him it seemed to me that this 
person was quite white, and was a kind 
of madness that would settle down quite 
blankly upon the place, a kind of mist 

23 The House of 

the Sphinx 



The Book of Wonder 

in which reason could not Uve; and it 
was the fear of this that made them 
fumble nervously at the lock of that 
rotten door; but with the Sphinx it was 
not so much fear as sheer prophecy. 

The hope that they tried to hope was 
well enough in its way, but I did not 
share it; it was clear that the thing that 
they feared was the corollary of the deed 
— one saw that more by the resignation 
upon the face of the Sphinx than by their 
sorry anxiety for the door. 

The wind soughed, and the great ta- 
pers flared, and their obvious fear and the 
silence of the Sphinx grew more than 
ever a part of the atmosphere, and bats 
went restlessly through the gloom of 
the wind that beat the tapers low. 

Then a few things screamed far off, 
then a little nearer, and something was 
coming towards us, laughing hideously. 
I hastily gave a prod to the door that 
they guarded; my finger sank right into 
the mouldering wood — there was not a 
chance of holding it. I had not leisure 
to observe their fright; I thought of the 

The House of 24 

the Sphinx 



The Book of Wonder 

back-door, for the forest was better than 
this; only the Sphinx was absolutely 
calm, her prophecy was made and she 
seemed to have seen her doom, so that 
no new thing could perturb her. 

But by mouldering rungs of ladders 
as old as Man, by slippery edges of the 
dreaded abyss, with an ominous dizzi- 
ness about my heart and a feeling of 
horror in the soles of my feet, I clambered 
from tower to tower till I found the door 
that I sought; and it opened on to one 
of the upper branches of a huge and. 
sombre pine, down which I climbed on 
to the floor of the forest. And I was glad 
to be back again in the forest from which 
I had fled. 

And the Sphinx in her menaced house 
— I know not how she fared — whether 
she gazes for ever, disconsolate, at the 
deed, remembering only in her smitten 
mind, at which little boys now leer, that 
she once knew well those things at which 
man stands aghast; or whether in the end 
she crept away, and clambering horribly 
from abyss to abyss, came at last to 

25 The House of 

the Sphinx 



The Book, of Wonder 

higher things, and is wise and eternal 
still. For who knows of madness whether 
it is divine or whether it be of the pit? 



The House of 26 

the Sphinx 



Probable Adventure 
of the Three 
Literary Men 

?hen the nomads came to 
El Lola they had no more 
songs, and the question of 
stealing the golden box 
arose in all its magnitude. 
On the one hand, many had sought the 
golden box, the receptacle (as the Aethi- 
opians know) of poems of fabulous value; 
and their doom is still the common talk 
of Arabia. On the other hand, it was 
lonely to sit round the camp-fire by night 
with no new songs. 

It was the tribe of Heth that discussed 
these things one evening upon the plains 
below the "peak of Mluna. Their native 
land was the track across the world of 
immemorial wanderers; and there was 




27 



Probable Adventure of the 
Three Literary Men 



The Book o/ Wonder 

trouble among the elders of the nomads 
because there were no new songs; while, 
untouched by human trouble, untouched 
as yet by the night that was hiding the 
plains away, the peak of Mluna, calm in 
the after-glow, looked on the Dubious 
Land. And it was there on the plain upon 
the known side of Mluna, just as the 
evening star came mouse-like into view 
and the flames of the camp-fire lifted 
their lonely plumes uncheered by any 
song that that rash scheme was hastily 
planned by the nomads which the world 
has named The Quest of the Golden 
Box. 

No measure of wiser precaution could 
the elders of the nomads have taken than 
to choose for their thief that very Slith, 
that identical thief that (even as I write) 
in how many school-rooms governesses 
teach stole a march on the King of 
Westalia. Yet the weight of the box was 
such that others had to accompany him, 
and Sippy and Slorg were no more agile 
thieves than may be found today among 
vendors of the antique. 

Probable Adventure of the 28 

Three Literary Men 



The Book of Wonder 

So over the shoulder of Mluna these 
three climbed next day and slept as well 
as they might among its snows rather 
than risk a night in the woods of the 
Dubious Land. And the morning came 
up radiant and the birds were full of 
song, but the forest underneath and the 
waste beyond it and the bare and omi- 
nous crags all wore the appearance of an 
unuttered threat. 

Though Slith had an experience of 
twenty years of theft, yet he said little; 
only if one of the others made a stone 
roll with his foot, or, later on in the 
forest, if one of them stepped on a twig, 
he whispered sharply to them always the 
same words: '^That is not business.*' 
He knew that he could not make them 
better thieves during a two days' jour- 
ney, and whatever doubts he had he 
interfered no further. 

From the shoulder of Mluna they 
dropped into the clouds, and from the 
clouds to the forest, to whose native 
beasts, as well the three thieves knew, 
all flesh was meat, whether it were the 

29 Probable Adventure of the 

Three Literary Men 



The Book of Wonder 

flesh of fish or man. There the thieves 
drew idolatrously from their pockets 
each one a separate god and prayed 
for protection in the unfortunate wood, 
and hoped therefrom for a threefold 
chance of escape, since if anything should 
eat one of them it were certain to eat 
them all, and they confided that the corol- 
lary might be true and all should escape 
if one did. Whether one of these gods 
was propitious and awake, or whether 
all of the three, or whether it was chance 
that brought them through the forest 
unmouthed by detestable beasts, none 
knoweth; but certainly neither the emis- 
saries of the god that most they feared, 
nor the wrath of the topical god of that 
ominous place, brought their doom to 
the three adventurers there or then. And 
so it was that they came to Rumbly 
Heath, in the heart of the Dubious Land, 
whose stormy hillocks were the ground- 
swell and the after-wash of the earth- 
quake lulled for a while. Something so 
huge that it seemed unfair to man that 
it should move so softly stalked splen- 

Probable Adventure of the 30 

Three Literary Men 



The Book of Wonder 

didly by them, and only so barely did 
they escape its notice that one word 
rang and echoed through their three 
imaginations — '^If — if — if/' And 
when this danger was at last gone by 
they moved cautiously on again and 
presently saw the Uttle harmless mipt, 
half fairy and half gnome, giving shrill 
contented squeaks on the edge of the 
world. And they edged away unseen, 
for they said that the inquisitiveness of 
the mipt had become fabulous, and that, 
harmless as he was, he had a bad 
way with secrets; yet they probably 
loathed the way that he nuzzles dead 
white bones, and would not admit their 
loathing, for it does not become adven- 
turers to care who eats their bones. Be 
this as it may, they edged away from the 
mipt, and came almost at once to the 
wizened tree, the goal-post of their ad- 
venture, and knew that beside them was 
the crack in the world and the bridge 
from Bad to Worse, and that under- 
neath them stood the rocky house of 
Owner of the Box. 

31 Probable Adventure of the 

Three Literary Men 



The Book of Wonder 

This was their simple plan: to slip into 
the corridor in the upper cliff; to run 
softly down it (of course with naked 
feet) under the warning to travellers 
that is graven upon stone, which inter- 
preters take to be ^'It Is Better Nof ; 
not to touch the berries that are there 
for a purpose, on the right side going 
down; and so to come to the guardian 
on his pedestal who had slept for a 
thousand years and should be sleeping 
still; and go in through the open window. 
One man was to wait outside by the 
crack in the World until the others came 
out with the golden box, and, should 
they cry for help, he was to threaten at 
once to unfasten the iron clamp that kept 
the crack together. When the box was 
secured they were to travel all night 
and all the following day, until the 
cloud-banks that wrapped the slopes of 
Mluna were well between them and 
Owner of the Box. 

The door in the cliff was open. They 
passed without a murmur down the cold 
steps, Slith leading them all the way. 

Probable Adventure of the 32 

Three Literary Men 



The Book of Wonder 

A glance of longing, no more, each gave 
to the beautiful berries. The guardian 
upon his pedestal was still asleep. Slorg 
climbed by a ladder, that Shth knew 
where to find, to the iron clamp across 
the crack in the World, and waited be- 
side it with a chisel in his hand, listen- 
ing closely for anything untoward, while 
his friends slipped into the house; and 
no sound came. And presently Slith and 
Sippy found the golden box: everjrthing 
seemed happening as they had planned, 
it only remained to see if it was the 
right one and to escape with it from that 
dreadful place. Under the shelter of 
the pedestal, so near to the guardian 
that they could feel his warmth, which 
paradoxically had the effect of chilling 
the blood of the boldest of them, they 
smashed the emerald hasp and opened 
the golden box; and there they read by 
the light of ingenious sparks which Slith 
knew how to contrive, and even this 
poor light they hid with their bodies. 
What was their joy, even at that perilous 
moment, as they lurked between the 

33 Probable Adventure of the 

Three Literary Men 



The Book of Wonder 

guardian and the abyss, to find that the 
box contained fifteen peerless odes in the 
alcaic form, five sonnets that were by 
far the most beautiful in the world, nine 
ballads in the manner of Provence that 
had no equal in the treasuries of man, a 
poem addressed to a moth in twenty- 
eight perfect stanzas, a piece of blank 
verse of over a hundred lines on a level 
not yet known to have been attained by 
man, as well as fifteen lyrics on which 
no merchant would dare to set a price. 
They would have read them again, for 
they gave happy tears to a man and 
memories of dear things done in infancy, 
and brought sweet voices from far sepul- 
chres; but Slith pointed imperiously to 
the way by which they had come, and 
extinguished the light; and Slorg and 
Sippy sighed, then took the box. 

The guardian still slept the sleep that 
survived a thousand years. 

As they came away they saw that 
indulgent chair close by the edge of the 
World in which Owner of the Box had 
lately sat reading selfishly and alone the 

Probable Adventure of the 34 

Three Literary Men 



The Book of Wonder 

most beautiful songs and verses that 
poet ever dreamed. 

They came in silence to the foot of 
the stairs; and then it befell that as they 
drew near safety, in the night^s most 
secret hour, some hand in an upper 
chamber lit a shocking light, lit it and 
made no sound. 

For a moment it might have been an 
ordinary light, fatal as even that could 
very well be at such a moment as this; 
but when it began to follow them like 
an eye and to grow redder and redder 
as it watched them, then even optimism 
despaired. 

And Sippy very unwisely attempted 
flight, and Slorg even as unwisely tried 
to hide; but Slith, knowing well why 
that light was lit in that secret upper 
chamber and who it was that lit it, leaped 
over the edge of the World and is falling 
from us still through the unreverberate 
blackness of the abyss. 



35 Probable Adventure of (he 

Three Literary Men 




The 

Injudicious Prayers 

ofPombo the Idolater 

pombo the idolater had 
prayed to Ammuz a simple 
prayer, a necessary prayer, 
such as even an idol of 
ivory could very easily 
grant, and Ammuz had not immediately 
granted it. Pombo had therefore prayed 
to Tharma for the overthrow of Ammuz, 
an idol friendly to Tharma, and in doing 
this offended against the etiquette of 
the gods. Tharma refused to grant the 
little prayer. Pombo prayed frantically 
to all the gods of idolatry, for though it 
was a simple matter, yet it was very 
necessary to a man. And gods that were 
older than Ammuz rejected the prayers 
of Pombo, and even gods that were 

The Injudicious Prayers of 36 

Pombo the Idolater 



The Book of Wonder 

younger and therefore of greater repute. 
He prayed to them one by one, and they 
all refused to hear him; nor at first did 
he think at all of that subtle, divine eti- 
quette against which he had offended. 
It occurred to him all at once as he prayed 
to his fiftieth idol, a little green-jade 
god whom the Chinese know, that all the 
idols were in league against him. When 
Pombo discovered this he resented his 
birth bitterly, and made lamentation and 
alleged that he was lost. He might have 
been seen then in any part of London 
haunting curiosity-shops and places where 
they sold idols of ivory or of stone, for 
he dwelt in London with others of his 
race though he was born in Burmah 
among those who hold Ganges holy. 
On drizzly evenings of November's worst 
his haggard face could be seen in the 
glow of some shop pressed close against 
the glass, where he would supplicate some 
calm cross-legged idol till policemen 
moved him on. And after closing hours 
back he would go to his dingy room, in 
that part of our capital where English 

37 Th3 Injudicious Prayers of 

Pombo the Idolater 



The Book of Wonder 

is seldom spoken, to supplicate little 
idols of his own. And when Pombo's 
simple, necessary prayer was equally 
refused by the idols of museums, auction- 
rooms, shops, then he took counsel with 
himself and purchased incense and burned 
it in a brazier before his own cheap 
little idols, and played the while upon an 
instrument such as that wherewith men 
charm snakes. And still the idols clung 
to their etiquette. 

Whether Pombo knew about this eti- 
quette and considered it frivolous in the 
face of his need, or whether his need, 
now grown desperate, unhinged his mind, 
I know not, but Pombo the idolater took 
a stick and suddenly turned iconoclast. 

Pombo the iconoclast immediately left 
his house, leaving his idols to be swept 
away with the dust and so to mingle 
with Man, and went to an arch-idolater 
of repute who carved idols out of rare 
stones, and put his case before him. The 
arch-idolater who made idols of his own 
rebuked Pombo in the name of Man for 
having broken his idols — '^for hath not 

The Injudicious Prayers of 3g 

Pombo the Idolater 



The Book of Wonder 

Man made them?'' the arch-idolater 
said; and concerning the idols themselves 
he spoke long and learnedly, explaining 
divine etiquette, and how Pombo had 
offended, and how no idol in the world 
would hsten to Pombo's prayer. When 
Pombo heard this he wept and made 
bitter outcry, and cursed the gods of 
ivory and the gods of jade, and the hand 
of Man that made them, but most of all 
he cursed their etiquette that had un- 
done, as he said, an innocent man; so 
that at last that arch-idolater, who made 
idols of his own, stopped in his work 
upon an idol of jasper for a king that 
was weary of Wosh, and took compassion 
on Pombo, and told him that though no 
idol in the world would listen to his 
prayer, yet only a little way over the 
edge of it a certain disreputable idol sat 
who knew nothing of etiquette, and 
granted prayers that no respectable god 
would ever consent to hear. When Pombo 
heard this he took two handfuls of the 
arch-idolater's beard and kissed them 
joyfully, and dried his tears and became 

39 ^^« Injudicious Prayers of 

Pombo the Idolatej 



The Book of Wonder 

his old impertinent self again. And he 
that carved from jasper the usm-per of 
Wosh explained how in the village of 
World's End, at the furthest end of Last 
Street, there is a hole that you take to 
be a well, close by the garden wall, but 
that if you lower yourself by your hands 
over the edge of the hole, and feel about 
with your feet till they find a ledge, that 
is the top step of a flight of stairs that 
takes you down over the edge of the 
World. '^For all that men know, those 
stairs may have a purpose and even a 
bottom step," said the arch-idolater, 
^'but discussion about the lower flights 
is idle.'' Then the teeth of Pombo chat- 
tered, for he feared the darkness, but 
he that made idols of his own explained 
that those stairs were always lit by the 
faint blue gloaming in which the World 
spins. ^^Then," he said, "you will go by 
Lonely House and under the bridge that 
leads from the House to Nowhere, and 
whose piu-pose is not guessed; thence 
past Maharrion, the god of flowers, and 
his high-priest, who is neither bird nor 

The Injudicious Prayers of 40 

Pombo the Idolater 



The Book of Wonder 

cat; and so you will come to the little 
idol Duth, the disreputable god that will 
grant your prayer/' And he went on 
carving again at his idol of jasper for the 
king who was weary of Wosh; and Pombo 
thanked him and went singing away, for 
in his vernacular mind he thought that 
^'he had the gods/' 

It is a long journey from London to 
World's End, and Pombo had no money 
left, yet within five weeks he was strolling 
along Last Street; but how he contrived 
to get there I will not say, for it was not 
entirely honest. And Pombo found the 
well at the end of the garden beyond the 
end house of Last Street, and many 
thoughts ran through his mind as he 
hung by his hands from the edge, but 
chiefest of all those thoughts was one 
that said the gods were laughing at him 
through the mouth of the arch-idolater, 
their prophet, and the thought beat in 
his head till it ached like his wrists . . . 
and then he found the step. 

And Pombo walked downstairs. 
There, sure enough, was the gloaming in 

41 The Injudicious Prayers of 

Pombo the Idolater 



The Book of Wonder 

which the world spins, and stars shone 
far off in it faintly; there was nothing 
before him as he went downstairs but 
that strange blue waste of gloaming, with 
its multitudes of stars, and comets plung- 
ing through it on outward journeys and 
comets returning home. And then he 
saw the lights of the bridge to Nowhere, 
and all of a sudden he was in the glare of 
the shimmering parlour-window of Lonely 
House; and he heard voices there pro- 
nouncing words, and the voices were 
nowise human, and but for his bitter 
need he had screamed and fled. Halfway 
between the voices and Maharrion, whom 
he now saw standing out from the world, 
covered in rainbow halos, he perceived 
the weird grey beast that is neither cat 
nor bird. As Pombo hesitated, chilly 
with fear, he heard those voices grow 
louder in Lonely House, and at that he 
stealthily moved a few steps lower, and 
then rushed past the beast. The beast 
intently watched Maharrion hurling up 
bubbles that are every one a season of 
spring in unknown constellations, calling 

The Injudicious Prayers of 42 

Pombo the Idolater 



The Book of Wonder 

the swallows home to unimagined fields, 
watched him without even turning to 
look at Pombo, and saw him drop into 
the Linlunlarna, the river that rises at 
the edge of the World, the golden pollen 
that sweetens the tide of the river and 
is carried away from the World to be a 
joy to the Stars. And there before 
Pombo was the little disreputable god 
who cares nothing for etiquette and will 
answer prayers that are refused by all 
the respectable idols. And whether the 
view of him, at last, excited Pombo's 
eagerness, or whether his need was 
greater than he could bear that it drove 
him so swiftly downstairs, or whether, 
as is most likely, he ran too fast past the 
beast, I do not know, and it does not 
matter to Pombo; but at any rate he 
could not stop, as he had designed, in 
attitude of prayer at the feet of Duth, 
but ran on past him down the narrowing 
steps, clutching at smooth bare rocks 
till he fell from the World as, when our 
hearts miss a beat, we fall in dreams and 
wake up with a dreadful jolt; but there 

43 ^^^ Injudicious Prayers of 

Pombo the Idolater 



The Book of Wonder 

was no waking up for Pombo, who still 
fell on towards the incurious stars, and 
his fate is even one with the fate of 
Slith. 



The Injudicious Prayers of 44 
Pombo the Idolater 




The Loot 

of 

'Bombasharna 

jhings had grown too hot 
for Shard, captain of 
pirates, on all the seas 
that he knew. The ports 
of Spain were closed to 
him; they knew him in San Domingo; 
men winked in Syracuse when he went 
by; the two Kings of the Sicilies never 
smiled within an hour of speaking of 
him; there were huge rewards for his 
head in every capital city, with pictures 
of it for identification — and all the pic- 
tures were unflattering. Therefore Captain 
Shard decided that the time had come 
to tell his men the secret. 

Riding off Teneriffe one night, he 
called them all together. He generously 
admitted that there were things in the 



45 



The Loot of 
Bombasharna 



The Book of Wonder 

past that might require explanation: 
the crowns that the Princes of Aragon 
had sent to their nephews the Kings of 
the two Americas had certainly never 
reached their Most Sacred Majesties. 
Where, men might ask, were the eyes of 
Captain Stobbud? Who had been burn- 
ing towns on the Patagonian seaboard? 
Why should such a ship as theirs choose 
pearls for cargo? Why so much blood on 
the decks and so many guns? And where 
was the Nancy, the Lark, or the Margaret 
Belle? Such questions as these, he urged, 
might be asked by the inquisitive, and 
if counsel for the defence should happen 
to be a fool, and unacquainted with the 
ways of the sea, they might become in- 
volved in troublesome legal formulae. 
And Bloody Bill, as they rudely called 
Mr. Gagg, a member of the crew, looked 
up at the sky, and said that it was a 
windy night and looked like hanging. 
And some of those present thoughtfully 
stroked their necks while Captain Shard 
unfolded to them his plan. He said the 
time was come to quit the Desperate 

The Loot of 4Q 

BombasharriQ 



The Book of Wonder 

Larky for she was too well known to the 
navies of four kingdoms, and a fifth was 
getting to know her, and others had sus- 
picions. (More cutters than even Captain 
Shard suspected were already looking for 
her jolly black flag with its neat skull- 
and-crossbones in yellow.) There was a 
little archipelago that he knew of on 
the wrong side of the Sargasso Sea; there 
were about thirty islands there, bare, 
ordinary islands, but one of them floated. 
He had noticed it years ago, and had 
gone ashore and never told a soul, but 
had quietly anchored it with the anchor 
of his ship to the bottom of the sea, 
which just there was profoundly deep, 
and had made the thing the secret of his 
life, determining to marry and settle 
down there if it ever became impossible 
to earn his livelihood in the usual way at 
sea. When first he saw it it was drifting 
slowly, with the wind in the tops of the 
trees; but if the cable had not rusted 
away, it should be still where he left it, 
and they would make a rudder and hol- 
low out cabins below, and at night they 

47 The Loot of 

Bombasharna 



The Book of Wonder 

would hoist sails to the trunks of the 
trees and sail wherever they liked. 

And all the pirates cheered, for they 
wanted to set their feet on land again 
somewhere where the hangman would 
not come and jerk them off it at once; 
and bold men though they were, it was 
a strain seeing so many lights coming 
their way at night. Even then . . . ! 
But it swerved away again and was lost 
in the mist. 

And Captain Shard said that they 
would need to get provisions first, and 
he, for one, intended to marry before he 
settled down; and so they should have 
one more fight before they left the ship, 
and sack the sea-coast city Bombasharna 
and take from it provisions for several 
years, while he himself would marry the 
Queen of the South. And again the 
pirates cheered, for often they had seen 
sea-coast Bombasharna, and had always 
envied its opulence from the sea. 

So they set all sail, and often altered 
their course, and dodged and fled from 
strange lights till dawn appeared, and 

The Loot of 43 

Bombasharna 



The Booh of Wonder 

all day long fled southwards. And by 
evening they saw the silver spires of 
slender Bombasharna, a city that was 
the glory of the coast. And in the midst 
of it, far away though they were, they 
saw the palace of the Queen of the 
South; and it was so full of windows all 
looking toward the sea, and they were 
so full of light, both from the sunset 
that was fading upon the water and from 
candles that maids were lighting one by 
one, that it looked far off like a pearl, 
shimmering still in its haliotis shell, still 
wet from the sea. 

So Captain Shard and his pirates saw 
it, at evening over the water, and thought 
of rumours that said that Bombasharna 
was the loveliest city of the coasts of 
the world, and that its palace was lovelier 
even than Bombasharna; but for the 
Queen of the South rumour had no com- 
parison. Then night came down and 
hid the silver spires, and Shard sHpped 
on through the gathering darkness until 
by midnight the piratic ship lay under 
the seaward battlements, 

49 The Loot of 

Bombasharna 



The Book of Wonder 

And at the hour when sick men mostly 
die, and sentries on lonely ramparts 
stand to their arms, exactly half-an-hour 
before dawn, Shard, with two rowing 
boats and half his crew, with craftily 
muffled oars, landed below the battle- 
ments. They were through the gateway 
of the palace itself before the alarm was 
sounded, and as soon as they heard the 
alarm Shard's gunners at sea opened 
upon the town, and, before the sleepy 
soldiery of Bombasharna knew whether 
the danger was from the land or the sea. 
Shard had successfully captured the 
Queen of the South. They would have 
looted all day that silver sea-coast city, 
but there appeared with dawn suspicious 
topsails just along the horizon. There- 
fore the captain with his Queen went 
down to the shore at once and hastily 
re-embarked and sailed away with what 
loot they had hurriedly got, and with 
fewer men, for they had to fight a good 
deal to get back to the boat. They 
cursed all day the interference of those 
ominous ships which steadily grew nearer. 

The Loot of 50 

Bombasharna 



The Book 0/ Wonder 

There were six ships at first, and that 
night they shpped away from all but 
two; but all the next day those two were 
still in sight, and each of them had more 
guns than the Desperate Lark, All the 
next night Shard dodged about the sea, 
but the two ships separated and one 
kept him in sight, and the next morning 
it was alone with Shard on the sea, and 
his archipelago was just in sight, the 
secret of his life. 

And Shard saw he must fight, and a 
bad fight it was, and yet it suited Shard's 
purpose, for he had more merry men 
when the fight began than he needed for 
his island. And they got it over before 
any other ship came up; and Shard put 
all adverse evidence out of the way, and 
came that night to the islands near the 
Sargasso Sea. 

Long before it was light the survivors 
of the crew were peering at the sea, and 
when dawn came there was the island, 
no bigger than two ships, straining hard 
at its anchor, with the wind in the tops 
of the trees, 

51 The Loot of 

Bombasharna 



The Book of Wonder 

And then they landed and dug cabins 
below and raised the anchor out of the 
deep sea, and soon they made the island 
what they called shipshape. But the 
Desperate Lark they sent away empty 
under full sail to sea, where more nations 
than Shard suspected were watching 
for her, and where she was presently cap- 
tured by an admiral of Spain, who, when 
he found none of that famous crew on 
board to hang by the neck from the yard- 
arm, grew ill through disappointment. 

And Shard on his island offered the 
Queen of the South the choicest of the 
old wines of Provence, and for adornment 
gave her Indian jewels looted from gal- 
leons with treasure for Madrid, and 
spread a table where she dined in the 
sun, while in some cabin below he bade 
the least coarse of his mariners sing; yet 
always she was morose and moody 
towards him, and often at evening he 
was heard to say that he wished he 
knew more about the ways of Queens. 
So they lived for years, the pirates mostly 
gambling and drinking below, Captain 

The Loot of 62 

Bombasharna 



The Book of Wonder 

Shard trying to please the Queen of the 
South, and she never wholly forgetting 
Bombasharna. When they needed new 
provisions they hoisted sails on the trees, 
and as long as no ship came in sight they 
scudded before the wind, with the water 
rippling over the beach of the island; 
but as soon as they sighted a ship the 
sails came down, and they became an 
ordinary uncharted r^ck. 

They mostly moved by night; some- 
times they hovered off sea-coast towns 
as of old, sometimes they boldly entered 
river-mouths, and even attached them- 
selves for a while to the mainland, 
whence they would plunder the neigh- 
bourhood and escape again to sea. And 
if a ship was wrecked on their island of 
a night they said it was all to the good. 
They grew very crafty in seamanship, 
and cunning in what they did, for they 
knew that any news of the Desperate 
Laih*s old crew would bring hangmen 
from the interior running down to every 
port. 

And no one is known to have found 

53 The Loot cf 

Bombasharna 



The Book of Wonder 

them out or to have annexed their island; 
but a rumour arose and passed from port 
to port and every place where sailors 
meet together, and even survives to this 
day, of a dangerous uncharted rock any- 
where between Plymouth and the Horn, 
which would suddenly rise in the safest 
track of ships, and upon which vessels 
were supposed to have been wrecked, 
leaving, strangely enough, no evidence 
of their doom. There was a little specula- 
tion about it at first, till it was silenced 
by the chance remark of a man old with 
wandering: "It is one of the mysteries 
that haunt the sea." 

And almost Captain Shard and the 
Queen of the South lived happily ever 
after, though still at evening those on 
watch in the trees would see their captain 
sit with a puzzled air or hear him mutter- 
ing now and again in a discontented way : 
"I wish I knew more about the ways of 
Queens," 



The Loot of 54 

Bombasharna 




"I Wish 1 Knew Moke About the Ways of Queens" 



Miss Cubbidge 
and the 
T>ragon 

of 
T{pmance 

This tale is told in the balconies of Belgrave Square and 
among the towers of Pont Street; men sing it at evening 
in the Brompton Road. 

^ittle upon her eighteenth 
; birthday thought Miss 
Cubbidge, of Number 12a 
Prince of Wales' Square, 
I that before another year 
had gone its way she would lose the sight 
of that unshapely oblong that was so 
long her home. And, had you told her 
further that within that year all trace of 
that so-called square, and of the day 
when her father was elected by a thump- 

55 Miss Cubbid(je and the 

Dragon of Romance 




The Book of Wonder 

ing majority to share in the guidance 
of the destinies of the empire, should 
utterly fade from her memory, she would 
merely have said in that affected voice 
of hers, ^^Go to!'' 

There was nothing about it in the 
daily Press, the policy of her father's 
party had no provision for it, there was 
no hint of it in conversation at evening 
parties to which Miss Cubbidge went: 
there was nothing to warn her at all 
that a loathsome dragon with golden 
scales that rattled as he went should 
have come up clean out of the prime of 
romance and gone by night (so far as 
we know) through Hammersmith, and 
come to Ardle Mansions, and then have 
turned to his left, which of course 
brought him to Miss Cubbidge's father's 
house. 

There sat Miss Cubbidge at evening 
on her balcony quite alone, waiting for 
her father to be made a baronet. She 
was wearing walking-boots and a hat 
and a low-necked evening dress; for a 
painter was but just now painting her 

Miss Cubbidge and the 56 

Dragon qf Romance 



The Book of Wonder 

portrait and neither she nor the painter 
saw anything odd in the strange combi- 
nation. She did not notice the roar of 
the dragon^s golden scales, nor distin- 
guish above the manifold lights of London 
the small; red glare of his eyes. He sud- 
denly lifted his head, a blaze of gold, 
over the balcony; he did not appear a 
yellow dragon then, for his glistening 
scales reflected the beauty that London 
puts upon her only at evening and night. 
She screamed, but to no knight, nor 
knew what knight to call on, nor guessed 
where were the dragons' overthrowers 
of far, romantic days, nor what mightier 
game they chased, or what wars they 
waged; perchance they were busy even 
then arming for Armageddon. 

Out of the balcony of her father's 
house in Prince of Wales' Square, the 
painted dark-green balcony that grew 
blacker every year, the dragon lifted 
Miss Cubbidge and spread his ratthng 
wings, and London fell away like an old 
fashion. And England fell away, and the 
smoke of its factories, and the round 

57 Miss Cubbidge and the 

Dragon of Romance 



The Book of Wonder 

material world that goes humming round 
the sun vexed and pursued by time, 
until there appeared the eternal and 
ancient lands of Romance lying low by 
mystical seas. 

You had not pictured Miss Cubbidge 
stroking the golden head of one of the 
dragons of song with one hand idly, 
while with the other she sometimes 
played with pearls brought up from 
lonely places of the sea. They filled 
huge haliotis shells with pearls and laid 
them there beside her, they brought her 
emeralds which she set to flash among 
the tresses of her long black hair, they 
brought her threaded sapphires for her 
cloak: all this the princes of fable did 
and the elves and the gnomes of myth. 
And partly she still lived, and partly 
she was one with long-ago and with those 
sacred tales that nurses tell, when all 
their children are good, and evening has 
come, and the fire is burning well, and 
the soft pat-pat of the snow-flakes on 
the pane is like the furtive tread of 
fearful things in old, enchanted woods. 

Miss Cubbidge and the 58 

Dragon of RomajLQ^ 



The Book of Wonder 

If at first she missed those dainty novel- 
ties among which she was reared, the 
old, sufficient song of the mystical sea 
singing of faery lore at first soothed and 
at last consoled her. Even, she forgot 
those advertisements of pills that are 
so dear to England; even, she forgot 
pohtical cant and the things that one 
discusses and the things that one does 
not, and had perforce to content herself 
with seeing sailing by huge golden-laden 
galleons with treasure for Madrid, and 
the merry skull-and-crossbones of the 
pirateers, and the tiny nautilus setting 
out to sea, and ships of heroes trafficking 
in romance or of princes seeking for 
enchanted isles. 

It was not by chains that the dragon 
kept her there, but by one of the spells 
of old. To one to whom the facilities of 
the daily Press had for so long been 
accorded spells would have palled — you 
would have said — and galleons after a 
time and all things out-of-date. After 
a time. But whether the centuries passed 
her or whether the years or whether no 

59 Miss Cubbidge and the 

Dragon of Romance 



The Book of Wonder 

time at all, she did not know. If any- 
thing indicated the passing of time it 
was the rhythm of elfin horns blowing 
upon the heights. If the centuries went 
by her the speU that bound her gave her 
also perennial youth, and kept alight 
for ever the lantern by her side, and saved 
from decay the marble palace facing the 
mystical sea. And if no time went by 
her there at all, her single moment on 
those marvellous coasts was turned as 
it were to a crystal reflecting a thousand 
scenes. If it was all a dream, it was a 
dream that knew no morning and no 
fading away. The tide roamed on and 
whispered of mystery and of myth, while 
near that captive lady, asleep in his 
marble tank the golden dragon dreamed: 
and a little way out from the coast 
all that the dragon dreamed showed 
faintly in the mist that lay over the 
sea. He never dreamed of any rescuing 
knight. So long as he dreamed, it was 
twihght; but when he came up nimbly 
out of his tank night fell and starlight 
glistened on the dripping, golden scales. 

Miss Cubbidge and the QQ 

Dragon of Romance 



The Book of Wonder 

There he and his captive either de- 
feated Time or never encountered him 
at all; while, in the world we know, 
raged Roncesvalles or battles yet to be 
— I know not to what part of the shore 
of Romance he bore her. Perhaps she 
became one of those princesses of whom 
fable loves to tell, but let it suffice that 
there she lived by the sea: and kings 
ruled, and Demons ruled, and kings 
came again, and many cities retiu-ned 
to their native dust, and still she abided 
there, and still her marble palace passed 
not away nor the power that there was 
in the dragon's spell. 

And only once did there ever come to 
her a message from the world that of 
old she knew, it came in a pearly ship 
across the mystical sea, it was from an 
old school-friend that she had had in 
Putney, merely a note, no more, in a 
little, neat, round hand: it said, "It is 
not Proper for you to be there alone/' 



gl Miss Cubbidge and the 

Dragon of Romance 



The Quest 

of 
the Queen's Tears 

jylvia, Queen of the Woods, 
in her woodland palace, 
I held court, and made a 
mockery of her suitors. 
She would sing to them, 
she said, she would give them banquets, 
she would tell them tales of legendary 
days, her jugglers should caper before 
them, her armies salute them, her fools 
crack jests with them and make whimsi- 
cal quips, only she could not love them. 
This was not the way, they said, to 
treat princes in their splendour and 
mysterious troubadours concealing kingly 
names; it was not in accordance with 
fable; myth had no precedent for it. 
She should have thrown her glove, they 




The Quest of the 
Queen's Tears 



62 



The Book of Wonder 

said, into some lion^s den, she should 
have asked for a score of venomous heads 
of the serpents of Licantara, or demanded 
the death of any notable dragon, or sent 
them all upon some deadly quest, but 

that she could not love them ! It 

was unheard of — it had no parallel in 
the annals of romance. 

And then she said that if they must 
needs have a quest she would offer her 
hand to him who first should move her to 
tears: and the quest should be called, for 
reference in histories or song, the Quest of 
the Queen's Tears, and he that achieved 
them she would wed, be he only a petty 
duke of lands unknown to romance. 

And many were moved to anger, for 
they hoped for some bloody quest; but 
the old lords chamberlain said, as they 
muttered among themselves in a far, 
dark end of the chamber, that the quest 
was hard and wise, for that if she could 
ever weep she might also love. They had 
known her all her childhood; she had 
never sighed. Many men had she seen, 
suitors and courtiers, and had never 

53 The Quest of the 

Queen's Tears 



The Book of Wonder 

turned her head after one went by. Her 
beauty was as still sunsets of bitter even- 
ings when all the world is frore, a wonder 
and a chill. She was as a sun-stricken 
mountain upUfted alone, all beautiful 
with ice, a desolate and lonely radiance 
late at evening far up beyond the com- 
fortable world, not quite to be compan- 
ioned by the stars, the doom of the 
mountaineer. 

If she could weep, they said, she could 
love, they said. 

And she smiled pleasantly on those 
ardent princes, and troubadours conceal- 
ing kingly names. 

Then one by one they told, each suitor 
prince the story of his love, with out- 
stretched hands and kneeling on the 
knee; and very sorry and pitiful were 
the tales, so that often up in the galleries 
some maid of the palace wept. And verj^ 
graciously she nodded her head like a 
hstless magnolia in the deeps of the 
night moving idly to all the breezes its 
glorious bloom. 

And when the princes had told their 

The Quest of the 54 

Queen's Tears 



The Book of Wonder 

desperate loves and had departed away 
with no other spoil than of their own 
tears only, even then there came the 
unknown troubadours and told their 
tales in song, concealing their gracious 
names. 

And one there was, Ackronnion, 
clothed with rags, on which was the dust 
of roads, and underneath the rags was 
war-scarred armour whereon were the 
dints of blows; and when he stroked his 
harp and sang his song, in gallery above 
gallery maidens wept, and even the old 
lords chamberlain whimpered among 
themselves and thereafter laughed 
through their tears and said: "It is 
easy to make old people weep and to 
bring idle tears from lazy girls; but he 
will not set a-weeping the Queen of the 
Woods/' 

And graciously she nodded, and he 
was the last. And disconsolate went 
away those dukes and princes, and trou- 
badours in disguise. Yet Ackronnion 
pondered as he went away. 

King was he of Afarmah, Lool and Haf, 

Q5 The Quest of the 

Queen's Tears 



The Book of Wonder 

over-lord of Zeroora and hilly Chang, 
and duke of the dukedoms of Molong 
and Mlash, none of them unfamiliar 
with romance or unknown or overlooked 
in the making of myth. He pondered as 
he went in his thin disguise. 

Now by those that do not remember 
their childhood, having other things to 
do, be it understood that underneath 
fairyland, which is, as all men know, at 
the edge of the world, there dwelleth the 
Gladsome Beast. A synonym he for joy. 

It is known how the lark in its zenith, 
children at play out-of-doors, good 
witches and jolly old parents have all 
been compared — and how aptly! — with 
this very same Gladsome Beast. Only 
one '^crab'^ he has (if I may use slang 
for a moment to make myself perfectly 
clear), only one drawback, and that is 
that in the gladness of his heart he spoils 
the cabbages of the Old Man Who Looks 
After Fairyland, — and of course he eats 
men. 

It must further be understood that 
whoever may obtain the tears of the 

The Quest of the 6Q 

Queen's Tears 



The Book of Wonder 

Gladsome Beast in a bowl, and become 
drunken upon them, may move all per- 
sons to shed tears of joy so long as he 
remains inspired by the potion to sing or 
to make music. 

Now Ackronnion pondered in this 
wise: that if he could obtain the tears of 
the Gladsome Beast by means of his art, 
withholding him from violence by the 
spell of music, and if a friend should 
slay the Gladsome Beast before his 
weeping ceased — for an end must come 
to weeping even with men — that so he 
might get safe away with the tears, and 
drink them before the Queen of the 
Woods and move her to tears of joy. 
He sought out therefore a humble 
knightly man who cared not for the 
beauty of Sylvia, Queen of the Woods, 
but had found a woodland maiden of his 
own once long ago in summer. And the 
man^s name was Arrath, a subject of 
Ackronnion, a knight-at-arms of the 
spear-guard: and together they set out 
through the fields of fable until they 
came to Fairyland, a kingdom sunning 

67 The Quest cf th'- 

Queen's Tears 



The Book of Wonder 

itself (as all men know) for leagues along 
the edges of the world. And by a strange 
old pathway they came to the land they 
sought, through a wind blowing up the 
pathway sheer from space with a kind of 
metallic taste from the roving stars. 
Even so they came to the windy house of 
thatch where dwells the Old Man Who 
Looks After Fairyland sitting by parlour 
windows that look away from the world. 
He made them welcome in his star-ward 
parlour, telling them tales of Space, and 
when they named to him their perilous 
quest he said it would be a charity to kill 
the Gladsome Beast; for he was clearly 
one of those that liked not its happy 
ways. And then he took them out through 
his back door, for the front door had no 
pathway nor even a step — from it the 
old man used to empty his slops sheer on 
to the Southern Cross — and so they 
came to the garden wherein his cabbages 
were, and those flowers that only blow in 
Fairyland, turning their faces always 
towards the comet, and he pointed them 
out the way to the place he called Under- 

The Quest of the 68 

Queen's Tears 



The Book of Wonder 

neath, where the Gladsome Beast had his 
lair. Then they manoeuvred. Ackronnion 
was to go by the way of the steps with 
his harp and an agate bowl, while Arrath 
went round by a crag on the other side. 
Then the Old Man Who Looks After 
Fairyland went back to his windy house, 
muttering angrily as he passed his cab- 
bages, for he did not love the ways of 
the Gladsome Beast; and the two friends 
parted on their separate ways. 

Nothing perceived them but that omi- 
nous crow glutted overlong already upon 
the flesh of man. 

The wind blew bleak from the stars. 

At first there was dangerous climbing, 
and then Ackronnion gained the smooth 
broad steps that led from the edge to the 
lair, and at that moment heard at the 
top of the steps the continuous chuckles 
of the Gladsome Beast. 

He feared then that its mirth might 
be insuperable, not to be saddened by 
the most grievous song; nevertheless he 
did not turn back then, but softly 
cHmbed the stairs and, placing the agate 

63 The Quest of the 

Queen's Tears 



The Book of Wonder 

bowl upon a step, struck up the chaunt 
called Dolorous. It told of desolate, 
regretted things befallen happy cities 
long since in the prime of the world. It 
told of how the gods and beasts and men 
had long ago loved beautiful companions, 
and long ago in vain. It told of the 
golden host of happy hopes, but not of 
their achieving. It told how Love scorned 
Death, but told of Death's laughter. 
The contented chuckles of the Gladsome 
Beast suddenly ceased in his lair. He 
rose and shook himself. He was still 
unhappy. Ackronnion still sang on the 
chaunt called Dolorous. The Gladsome 
Beast came mournfully up to him. Ack- 
ronnion ceased not for the sake of his 
panic, but still sang on. He sang of the 
malignity of time. Two tears welled 
large in the eyes of the Gladsome Beast. 
Ackronnion moved the agate bowl to a 
suitable spot with his foot. He sang of 
autumn and of passing away. Then the 
beast wept as the frore hills weep in the 
thaw, and the tears splashed big into 
the agate bowl. Ackronnion desperately 

The Quest of the 70 

Queen's Tears 




Hk Fkvt as a J\I ousel 



The Book of Wonder 

chaunted on; he told of the glad un- 
noticed things men see and do not see 
again, of sunlight beheld unheeded on 
faces now withered away. The bowl was 
full. Ackronnion was desperate: the 
Beast was so close. Once he thought 
that its mouth was watering! — but it 
was only the tears that had run on the 
lips of the Beast. He felt as a morsel! 
The Beast was ceasing to weep! He sang 
of worlds that had disappointed the 
gods. And all of a sudden, crash! and 
the staunch spear of Arrath went home 
behind the shoulder, and the tears and 
the joyful ways of the Gladsome Beast 
were ended and over for ever. 

And carefully they carried the bowl of 
tears away, leaving the body of the Glad- 
some Beast as a change of diet for the 
ominous crow; and going by the windy 
house of thatch they said farewell to the 
Old Man Who Looks After Fairyland, 
who when he heard of the deed rubbed 
his laige hands together and mumbled 
again and again, ^' And a very good thing, 
too. My cabbages! My cabbages !'' 

71 The Quest of the 

Queen's tears 



The Book of Wonder 

And not long after Ackronnion sang 
again in the sylvan palace of the Queen 
of the Woods, having first drunk all the 
tears in his agate bowl. And it was a 
gala night, and all the court were there 
and ambassadors from the lands of 
legend and myth, and even some from 
Terra Cognita. 

And Ackronnion sang as he never sang 
before, and will not sing again. 0, but 
dolorous, dolorous, are all the ways of 
man, few and fierce are his days, and the 
end trouble, and vain, vain his endeavour: 
and woman — who shall tell of it? — 
her doom is written with man's by list- 
less, careless gods with their faces to 
other spheres. 

Somewhat thus he began, and then 
inspiration seized him, and all the trouble 
in the beauty of his song may not be 
set down by me: there was much glad- 
ness in it, and all mingled with grief: it 
was like the way of man: it was like our 
destiny. 

Sobs arose at his song, sighs came back 
along echoes: seneschals, soldiers, sobbed, 

The Quest of the 72 

Queen's Tears 



The Book of Wonder 

and a clear cry made the maidens; like 
rain the tears came down from gallery 
to gallery. 

All round the Queen of the Woods was 
a storm of sobbing and sorrow. 

But no, she would not weep, 



73 The Quest of the 

Queen's Tears 




The Hoard of the 
Gibbelins 

[he Gibbelins eat, as is well 
known, nothing less good 
than man. Their evil 
tower is joined to Terra 
Cognita, to the lands we 
know, by a bridge. Their hoard is be- 
yond reason; avarice has no use for it; 
they have a separate cellar for emeralds 
and a separate cellar for sapphires; they 
have filled a hole with gold and dig it up 
when they need it. And the only use 
that is known for their ridiculous wealth 
is to attract to their larder a continual 
supply of food. In times of famine they 
have even been known to scatter rubies 
abroad, a little trail of them to some city 
of Man, and sure enough their larders 
would soon be full again. 

Their tower stands on the other side of 



The Hoard of the 
Gibbelins 



74 




There the Gibbelins Lived and Discreditably Fed 



The Book of Wonder 

that river known to Homer — o poo? ax^avoCo^ 
as he called it — which surrounds the 
world. And where the river is narrow and 
fordable the tower was built by the 
Gibbelins' gluttonous sires, for they liked 
to see burglars rowing easily to their 
steps. Some nourishment that common 
soil has not the huge trees drained there 
with their colossal roots from both banks 
of the river. 

There the Gibbelins lived and dis- 
creditably fed. 

AJderic, Knight of the Order of the City 
and the Assault, hereditary Guardian of 
the King^s Peace of Mind, a man not 
unremembered among the makers of 
myth, pondered so long upon the Gib- 
belins' hoard that by now he deemed it 
his. Alas that I should say of so perilous 
a venture, undertaken at dead of night 
by a valorous man, that its motive was 
sheer avarice! Yet upon avarice only the 
Gibbelins relied to keep their larders full, 
and once in every hundred years sent 
spies into the cities of men to see how 
avarice did, and always the spies returned 

76 The Hoard of the 

Gibbelins 



The Book of Wonder 

again to the tower saying that all was 
well. 

It may be thought that, as the years 
went on and men came by fearful ends 
on that tower^s wall, fewer and fewer 
would come to the Gibbelins' table: but 
the Gibbelins found otherwise. 

Not in the folly and frivolity of his 
youth did Alderic come to the tower, 
but he studied carefully for several years 
the manner in which burglars met their 
doom when they went in search of the 
treasure that he considered his. In every 
case they had entered by the door. 

He consulted those who gave advice 
on this quest; he noted every detail and 
cheerfully paid their fees, and deter- 
mined to do nothing that they advised, 
for what were their clients now? No more 
than examples of the savoury art, mere 
half -forgotten memories of a meal; and 
many, perhaps, no longer even that. 

These were the requisites for the quest 
that these men used to advise: a horse, 
a boat, mail armour, and at least three 
men-at-arms. Some said, '^Blow the 

The Hoard of the 76 

Gibbelins 



The Book of Wonder 

horn at the tower door^'; others said, 
''Do not touch it/' 

Alderic thus decided: he would take 
no horse down to the river's edge, he 
would not row along it in a boat, and he 
would go alone and by way of the 
Forest Unpassable. 

How pass, you may say, by the un- 
passable? This was his plan: there was 
a dragon he knew of who if peasants' 
prayers are heeded deserved to die, not 
alone because of the number of maidens 
he cruelly slew, but because he was bad 
for the crops; he ravaged the very land 
and was the bane of a dukedom. 

Now Alderic determined to go up 
against him. So he took horse and spear 
and pricked till he met the dragon, and 
the dragon came out against him breath- 
ing bitter smoke. And to him Alderic 
shouted, "Hath foul dragon ever slain 
true knight?" And well the dragon knew 
that this had never been, and he hung 
his head and was silent, for he was 
glutted with blood. ''Then," said the 
knight, "if thou would'st ever taste 

77 The Hoard of the 

Qibbelins 



The Book of Wonder 

maiden's blood again thou shalt be my 
trusty steed, and if not, by this spear 
there shall befall thee all that the trouba- 
dours tell of the dooms of thy breed/' 

And the dragon did not open his raven- 
ing mouth, nor rush upon the knight, 
breathing out fire; for well he knew the 
fate of those that did these things, but he 
consented to the terms imposed, and swore 
to the knight to becom^e his trusty steed. 

It was on a saddle upon this dragon's 
back that Alderic afterwards sailed above 
the unpassable forest, even above the 
tops of those measureless trees, children 
of wonder. But first he pondered that 
subtle plan of his which was more pro- 
found than merely to avoid all that had 
been done before; and he commanded a 
blacksmith, and the blacksmith made 
him a pickaxe. 

Now there was great rejoicing at the 
rumour of Alderic's quest, for all folk 
knew that he was a cautious man, and 
they deemed that he would succeed and 
enrich the world, and they rubbed their 
hands in the cities at the thought of 

The Hoard of the 78 

Qibbelina '" 



The Book of Wonder 

largesse; and there was joy among all men 
in Alderic's country, except perchance 
among the lenders of money, who feared 
they would soon be paid. And there was 
rejoicing also because men hoped that 
when the Gibbelins were robbed of their 
hoard, they would shatter their high- 
built bridge and break the golden chains 
that bound them to the world, and drift 
back, they and their tower, to the moon, 
from which they had come and to which 
they rightly belonged. There was little 
love for the Gibbelins, though all men 
envied their hoard. 

So they all cheered, that day when he 
mounted his dragon, as though he was 
already a conqueror, and what pleased 
them more than the good that they 
hoped he would do to the world was that 
he scattered gold as he rode away; for 
he would not need it, he said, if he found 
the Gibbelins' hoard, and he would not 
need it more if he smoked on the Gibbe- 
lins' table. 

When they heard that he had rejected 
the advice of those that gave it, some said 

79 The Hoard of the 

Gibbelins 



The Book of Wonder 

that the knight was mad, and others 
said he was greater than those that gave 
the advice, but none appreciated the 
worth of his plan. 

He reasoned thus: for centuries men 
had been well advised and had gone by 
the cleverest way, while the Gibbelins 
came to expect them to come by boat and 
to look for them at the door whenever 
their larder was empty, even as a man 
looketh for a snipe in the marsh; but how, 
said Alderic, if a snipe should sit in the 
top of a tree, and would men find him 
there? Assuredly never! So Alderic de- 
cided to swim the river and not to go by 
the door, but to pick his way into the 
tower through the stone. Moreover, it 
was in his mind to work below the level 
of the ocean, the river (as Homer knew) 
that girdles the world, so that as soon 
as he made a hole in the wall the water 
should pour in, confounding the Gibbe- 
lins, and flooding the cellars rumoured 
to be twenty feet in depth, and therein 
he would dive for emeralds as a diver 
dives for pearls. 

The Hoard of the gQ 

Gibbelins 



The Book of Wonder 

And on the day that I tell of he 
galloped away from his home scattering 
largesse of gold, as I have said, and passed 
through many kingdoms, the dragon 
snapping at maidens as he went, but 
being unable to eat them because of the 
bit in his mouth, and earning no gentler 
reward than a spurthrust where he was 
softest. And so they came to the swart 
arboreal precipice of the unpassable for- 
est. The dragon rose at it with a rattle 
of wings. Many a farmer near the edge 
of the world saw him up there where 
yet the twilight Ungered, a faint, black, 
wavering line; and mistaking him for a 
row of geese going inland from the ocean, 
went into their houses cheerily rubbing 
their hands and saying that winter was 
coming, and that we should soon have 
snow. Soon even there the twilight 
faded away, and when they descended 
at the edge of the world it was night and 
the moon was shining. Ocean, the an- 
cient river, narrow and shallow there, 
flowed by and made no murmur. Whether 
the Gibbelins banqueted or whether they 

81 The Hoard of the 

Gibbelins 



The Book of Wonder 

watched by the door, they also made no 
murmur. And Alderic dismounted and 
took his armour off, and saying one 
prayer to his lady, swam with his pick- 
axe. He did not part from his sword, 
for fear that he met with a Gibbehn. 
Landed the other side, he began to work 
at once, and all went well with him. 
Nothing put out its head from any 
window, and all were lighted so that 
nothing within could see him in the dark. 
The blows of his pickaxe were dulled in 
the deep walls. All night he worked, no 
sound came to molest him, and at dawn 
the last rock swerved and tumbled in- 
wards, and the river poured in after. 
Then Alderic took a stone, and went to 
the bottom step, and hurled the stone 
at the door; he heard the echoes roll 
into the tower, then he ran back and 
dived through the hole in the wall. 

He was in the emerald-cellar. There 
was no light in the lofty vault above 
him, but, diving through twenty feet of 
water, he felt the floor all rough with 
emeralds, and open coffers full of them. 

The Hoard of the $2 

Gibbelins 



The Book of Wonder 

By a faint ray of the moon he saw that 
the water was green with them, and, 
easily fiUing a satchel, he rose again to 
the surface; and there were the Gibbe- 
lins waist-deep in the water, with torches 
in their hands! And, without saying a 
word, or even smiling, they neatly hanged 
him on the outer wall — and the tale 
is one of those that have not a happy 
ending. 



83 ^^' Hoard of the 

Gibbelins 




How Nuth would 
have Practised his 
Art upon the Gnoles 

lespite the advertisements 
of rival firms, it is prob- 
able that every tradesman 
knows that nobody in busi- 
ness at the present time 
has a position equal to that of Mr. 
Nuth. To those outside the magic circle 
of business, his name is scarcely known; 
he does not need to advertise, he is con- 
sunmiate. He is superior even to modern 
competition, and, whatever claims they 
boast, his rivals know it. His terms are 
moderate, so much cash down when the 
goods are delivered, so much in black- 
mail afterwards. He consults your con- 
venience. His skill may be counted upon; 
I have seen a shadow on a windy night 

How Nuth would have Prac- g4 
Used his Art upon the Gnoles 



The Book of Wonder 

move more noisily than Nuth, for Nuth 
is a burglar by trade. Men have been 
known to stay in country houses and to 
send a dealer afterwards to bargain for 
a piece of tapestry that they saw there — 
some article of furniture, some picture. 
This is bad taste: but those whose cul- 
ture is more elegant invariably send 
Nuth a night or two after their visit. 
He has a way with tapestry, you would 
scarcely notice that the edges had been 
cut. And often when I see some huge, 
new house full of old furniture and por- 
traits from other ages, I say to myself, 
"These mouldering chairs, these full- 
length ancestors and carved mahogany 
are the produce of the incomparable 
Nuth.'^ 

It may be urged against my use of the 
word incomparable that in the burglary 
business the name of Slith stands para- 
mount and alone; and of this I am not 
ignorant; but Slith is a classic, and lived 
long ago, and knew nothing at all of 
modern competition; besides which the 
^ surprising nature of his doom has possibly 

g5 How Nuth would have Prac- 
tised his Art upon the Gnoles 



The Book of Wonder 

cast a glamour upon Slith that exagger- 
ates in our eyes his undoubted merits. 

It must not be thought that I am 
any friend of Nuth's, on the contrary such 
politics as I have are on the side of 
Property; and he needs no words from 
me, for his position is almost unique in 
trade, being among the very few that 
do not need to advertise. 

At the time that my story begins Nuth 
lived in a roomy house in Belgrave 
Square: in his inimitable way he had 
made friends with the caretaker. The 
place suited Nuth, and, whenever any- 
one came to inspect it before purchase, 
the caretaker used to praise the house in 
the words that Nuth had suggested. 
''If it wasn't for the drains," she would 
say, '4t's the finest house in London,^' 
and when they pounced on this remark 
and asked questions about the drains, 
she would answer them that the drains 
also were good, but not so good as the 
house. They did not see Nuth when 
they went over the rooms, but Nuth 
was there. 

How Nuth would have Prac- gQ 
Used his Art upon the Gnoles 



The Book of Wonder 

Here in a neat black dress on one 
spring morning came an old woman 
whose bonnet was lined with red, asking 
for Mr. Nuth; and with her came her 
large and awkward son. Mrs. Eggins, 
the caretaker, glanced up the street, 
and then she let them in, and left them 
to wait in the drawing-room amongst 
furniture all mysterious with sheets. For 
a long while they waited, and then there 
was a smell of pipe-tobacco, and there 
was Nuth standing quite close to them. 

"Lord,'* said the old woman whose 
bonnet was lined with red, ''you did 
make me start.'' And then she saw 
by his eyes that that was not the way 
to speak to Mr. Nuth. 

And at last Nuth spoke, and very 
nervously the old woman explained that 
her son was a Ukely lad, and had been 
in business already but wanted to better 
himself, and she wanted Mr. Nuth to 
teach him a livelihood. 

First of all Nuth wanted to see a 
business reference, and when he was 
Bhown one from a jeweller with whom 

87 How Nuth would have Prac- 
tised his Art upon the Gnoles 



The Book of Wonder 

he happened to be hand-in-glove the up- 
shot of it was that he agreed to take 
young Tonker (for this was the surname 
of the hkely lad) and to make him his 
apprentice. And the old woman whose 
bonnet was lined with red went back to 
her little cottage in the country, and 
every evening said to her old man, 
'^ Tonker, we must fasten the shutters 
of a night-time, for Tommy's a burglar 
now." 

The details of the likely lad's ap- 
prenticeship I do not propose to give; 
for those that are in the business know 
those details already, and those that 
are in other businesses care only for their 
own, while men of leisure who have no 
trade at all would fail to appreciate the 
gradual degrees by which Tommy Tonker 
came first to cross bare boards, covered 
with little obstacles in the dark, without 
making any sound, and then to go si- 
lently up creaky stairs, and then to open 
doors, and lastly to climb. 

Let it suffice that the business pros- 
pered greatly, while glowing reports of 

How Nuth would have Prac- gg 
tised his Art upon the Gnoles 



The Book of Wonder 

Tommy Tonker's progress were sent 
from time to time to the old woman 
whose bonnet was hned with red in the 
laborious handwriting of Nuth. Nuth 
had given up lessons in writing very 
early, for he seemed to have some preju- 
dice against forgery, and therefore con- 
sidered writing a waste of time. And 
then there came the transaction with 
Lord Castlenorman at his Surrey resi- 
dence. Nuth selected a Saturday night, 
for it chanced that Saturday was ob- 
served as Sabbath in the family of Lord 
Castlenorman, and by eleven o^clock the 
whole house was quiet. Five minutes 
before midnight Tommy Tonker, in- 
structed by Mr. Nuth, who waited out- 
side, came away with one pocketful of 
rings and shirt-studs. It was quite a 
light pocketful, but the jewellers in Paris 
could not match it without sending spe- 
cially to Africa, so that Lord Castlenor- 
man had to borrow bone shirt-studs. 

Not even rumour whispered the name 
of Nuth. Were I to say that this turned 
his head, there are those to whom the 

g9 How Nuth would have Prac- 
tised his Art upon the Gnoles 



The Book of Wonder 

assertion would give pain, for his associ- 
ates hold that his astute judgment was 
unaffected by circumstance. I will say, 
therefore, that it spurred his genius to 
plan what no burglar had ever planned 
before. It was nothing less than to burgle 
the house of the gnoles. And this that 
abstemious man unfolded to Tonker over 
a cup of tea. Had Tonker not been nearly 
insane with pride over their recent trans- 
action, and had he not been blinded by a 
veneration for Nuth, he would have — 
but I cry over spilt milk. He expostu- 
lated respectfully: he said he would 
rather not go; he said it was not fair, 
he allowed himself to argue; and in the 
end, one windy October morning with a 
menace in the air found him and Nuth 
drawing near to the dreadful wood. 

Nuth, by weighing little emeralds 
against pieces of common rock, had 
ascertained the probable weight of those 
house-ornaments that the gnoles are be- 
lieved to possess in the narrow, lofty 
house wherein they have dwelt from of 
old. They decided to steal two emeralds 

How Nuth would have Prac- QQ 
Used his Art upontik^ Gnoles 



The Book of Wonder 

and to carry them between them on a 
cloak; but if they should be too heavy 
one must be dropped at once. Nuth 
warned young Tonker against greed, and 
explained that the emeralds were worth 
less than cheese until they were safe 
away from the dreadful wood. 

Everything had been planned, and they 
walked now in silence. 

No track led up to the sinister gloom 
of the trees, either of men or cattle; not 
even a poacher had been there snaring 
elves for over a hundred years. You did 
not trespass twice in the dells of the 
gnoles. And, apart from the things that 
were done there, the trees themselves 
were a warning, and did not wear the 
wholesome look of those that we plant 
ourselves. 

The nearest village was some miles 
away with the backs of all its houses 
turned to the wood, and without one 
window at all facing in that direction. 
They did not speak of it there, and else- 
where it is unheard of. 

Into this wood stepped Nuth and 

91 How Nuth would have Prac- 
tised his Art upon the Gnoles 



The Boo\ of Wonder 

Tommy Tonker. They had no firearms. 
Tonker had asked for a pistol, but Nuth 
repUed that the sound of a shot '^ would 
bring everything down on us/' and no 
more was said about it. 

Into the wood they went all day, 
deeper and deeper. They saw the skele- 
ton of some early Georgian poacher 
nailed to a door in an oak tree; sometimes 
they saw a fairy scuttle away from them; 
once Tonker stepped heavily on a hard, 
dry stick, after which they both lay still 
for twenty minutes. And the sunset 
flared full of omens through the tree 
trunks, and night fell, and they came by 
fitful starlight, as Nuth had foreseen, to 
that lean, high house where the gnoles so 
secretly dwelt. 

All was so silent by that unvalued 
house that the faded coiu-age of Tonker 
flickered up, but to Nuth's experienced 
sense it seemed too silent; and all the 
while there was that look in the sky that 
was worse than a spoken doom, so that 
Nuth, as is often the case when men are 
in doubt, had leisure to fear the worst. 

JJnw Nuth would have Prac- 92 
Used his Art upon the Gnoles 



The Book of Wonder 

Nevertheless he did not abandon the 
business, but sent the hkely lad with the 
instruments of his trade by means of the 
ladder to the old green casement. And 
the moment that Tonker touched the 
withered boards, the silence that, though 
ominous, was earthly, became unearthly 
like the touch of a ghoul. And Tonker 
heard his breath offending against that 
silence, and his heart was like mad drums 
in a night attack, and a string of one of 
his sandals went tap on a rung of a ladder, 
and the leaves of the forest were mute, 
and the breeze of the night was still; and 
Tonker prayed that a mouse or a mole 
might make any noise at all, but not a 
creature stirred, even Nuth was still. 
And then and there, while yet he was 
undiscovered, the likely lad made up his 
mind, as he should have done long before, 
to leave those colossal emeralds where 
they were and have nothing further to do 
with the lean, high house of the gnoles, 
but to quit this sinister wood in the nick 
of time and retire from business at once 
and buy a place in the country. Then he 

93 How Nuth would have Prac- 
tised his Art upon the Gnoles 



The Book of Wonder 

descended softly and beckoned to Nuth. 
But the gnoles had watched him through 
knavish holes that they bore in trunks of 
the trees, and the unearthly silence gave 
way, as it were with a grace, to the rapid 
screams of Tonker as they picked him 
up from behind — screams that came 
faster and faster until they were inco- 
herent. And where they took him it is 
not good to ask, and what they did with 
him I shall not say. 

Nuth looked on for a while from the 
corner of the house with a mild surprise 
on his face as he rubbed his chin, for the 
trick of the holes in the trees was new to 
him; then he stole nimbly away through 
the dreadful wood. 

''And did they catch Nuth?'' you ask 
me, gentle reader. 

''Oh, no, my child'' (for such a ques- 
tion is childish). "Nobody ever catches 
Nuth." 



How Nuth would have Prae- 94 
tised his Art upon the Gnoles 




The Lean, High House of t.ie Gnoles 



How 

One came, 

as was foretold, 

to the City of Never 

jhe child that played about 
the terraces and gardens 
in sight of the Surrey hills 
never knew that it was he 
that should come to the 
Ultimate City, never knew that he should 
see the Under Pits, the barbicans and 
the holy minarets of the mightiest city 
known. I think of him now as a child 
with a little red watering-can going about 
the gardens on a summer^s day that lit 
the warm south country, his imagination 
delighted with all tales of quite little ad- 
ventures, and all the while there was 
reserved for him that feat at which men 
wonder. 




95 How One came to the 

City of Never 



The Book of Wonder 

Looking in other directions, away from 
the Surrey hills, through all his infancy 
he sav/ that precipice that, wall above 
wall and mountain above mountain, 
stands at the edge of the World, and in 
perpetual twilight alone with the Moon 
and the Sun holds up the inconceivable 
City of Never. To tread its streets he 
was destined; prophecy knew it. He had 
the magic halter, and a worn old rope it 
was, an old wayfaring woman had given 
it to him: it had the power to hold any 
animal whose race had never known cap- 
tivity, such as the unicorn, the hippogriff 
Pegasus, dragons and wyverns; but with 
a lion, giraffe, camel or horse it was use- 
less. 

How often we have seen that City of 
Never, that marvel of the Nations! Not 
when it is night in the World, and we 
can see no further than the stars; not 
when the sun is shining where we dwell, 
dazzling our eyes; but when the sun has 
set on some stormy days, all at once 
repentant at evening, and those glitter- 
ing cliffs reveal themselves which we 

How One came to the 96 

City of Never 



The Book of Wonder 

almost take to be clouds, and it is twi- 
light with us as it is for ever with them, 
then on their gleaming summits we 
see those golden domes that overpeer the 
edges of the World and seem to dance 
with dignity and calm in that gentle light 
of evening that is Wonder's native haunt. 
Then does the City of Never, unvisited 
and afar, look long at her sister the 
World. 

It had been prophesied that he should 
come there. They knew it when the 
pebbles were being made and before the 
isles of coral were given unto the sea. 
And thus the prophecy came unto fulfil- 
ment and passed into history, and so at 
length to Oblivion, out of which I drag 
it as it goes floating by, into which I 
shall one day tumble. The hippogriffs 
dance before dawn in the upper air; long 
before sunrise flashes upon our lawns 
they go to glitter in light that has not 
yet come to the World, and as the dawn 
works up from the ragged hills and the 
stars feel it they go slanting earthwards, 
till sunlight touches the tops of the 

Cl7 How One came to the 

City oj Never 



The Book of Wonder 

tallest trees, and the hippogriffs alight 
with a rattle of quills and fold their 
wings and gallop and gambol away till 
they come to some prosperous, wealthy, 
detestable town, and they leap at once 
from the fields and soar away from the 
sight of it, pursued by the horrible smoke 
of it until they come again to the pure 
blue air. 

He whom prophecy had named from 
of old to come to the City of Never, went 
down one midnight with his magic halter 
to a lake-side where the hippogriffs 
alighted at dawn, for the turf was soft 
there and they could gallop far before 
they came to a town, and there he waited 
hidden near their hoofmarks. And the 
stars paled a little and grew indistinct; 
but there was no other sign as yet of 
the dawn, when there appeared far up 
in the deeps of night two little saffron 
specks, then four and five: it was the 
hippogriffs dancing and twirling around 
in the sun. Another flock joined them, 
there were twelve of them now; they 
danced there, flashing their colours back 

How One came to the 93 

City of Never 



The Book of Wonder 

to the sun, they descended in wide 
curves slowly; trees down on earth re- 
vealed against the sky, jet-black each 
delicate twig; a star disappeared from a 
cluster, now another; and dawn came on 
like music, like a new song. Ducks shot 
by to the lake from still dark fields of 
corn, far voices uttered, a colour grew 
upon water, and still the hippogriffs 
gloried in the light, revelling up in the 
sky; but when pigeons stirred on the 
branches and the first small bird was 
abroad, and little coots from the rushes 
ventured to peer about, then there came 
down on a sudden with a thunder of 
feathers the hippogriffs, and, as they 
landed from their celestial heights all 
bathed with the day's first sunlight, the 
man whose destiny it was from of old 
to come to the City of Never, sprang up 
and caught the last with the magic halter, 
it plunged, but could not escape it, for 
the hippogriffs are of the uncaptured 
races, and magic has power over the 
magical, so the man mounted it, and it 
soared again for the heights whence it 

99 How One came to the 

City of Never 



The Book o/ Wonder 

had come, as a wounded beast goes home. 
But when they came to the heights that 
venturous rider saw huge and fair to the 
left of him the destined City of Never, 
and he beheld the towers of Lei and Lek, 
Neerib and Akathooma, and the cliffs of 
Toldenarba a-glistering in the twilight 
like an alabaster statue of the Evening. 
Towards them he wrenched the halter, 
towards Toldenarba and the Under Pits; 
the wings of the hippogriff roared as the 
halter turned him. Of the Under Pits 
who shall tell? Their mystery is secret. 
It is held by some that they are the 
sources of night, and that darkness pours 
from them at evening upon the world; 
while others hint that knowledge of these 
might undo our civilization. 

There watched him ceaselessly from the 
Under Pits those eyes whose duty it is; 
from further within and deeper, the bats 
that dwell there arose when they saw 
the surprise in the eyes; the sentinels on 
the bulwarks beheld that stream of bats 
and lifted up their spears as it were for 
war. Nevertheless when they perceived 

How One came to the IQO 

City of Never 




The City of Neviou 



The Book o/ Wonder 

that that war for which they watched 
was not now come upon them, they low- 
ered their spears and suffered him to 
enter, and he passed whirring through 
the earthward gateway. Even so he came, 
as foretold, to the City of Never perched 
upon Toldenarba, and saw late twilight 
on those pinnacles that know no other 
light. All the domes were of copper, but 
the spires on their summits were gold. 
Little steps of onyx ran all this way and 
that. With cobbled agates were its streets 
a glory. Through small square panes of 
rose-quartz the citizens looked from their 
houses. To them as they looked abroad 
the World far-off seemed happy. Clad 
though that city was in one robe always, 
in twilight, yet was its beauty worthy 
of even so lovely a wonder: city and twi- 
light both were peerless but for each 
other. Built of a stone unknown in the 
world we tread were its bastions, quarried 
we know not where, but called by the 
gnomes abyx, it so flashed back to the 
twilight its glories, colour for colour, that 
none can say of them where their boun- 

101 How One came to the 

City of Never 



The Book of Wonder 

dary is, and which the eternal twilight, 
and which the City of Never; they are 
the twin-born children, the fairest daugh- 
ters of Wonder. Time had been there, but 
not to work destruction; he had turned 
to a fair, pale green the domes that were 
made of copper, the rest he had left un- 
touched, even he, the destroyer of cities, 
by what bribe I know not averted. 
Nevertheless they often wept in Never 
for change and passing away, mourning 
catastrophes in other worlds, and they 
built temples sometimes to ruined stars 
that had fallen flaming down from the 
Milky Way, giving them worship still 
when by us long since forgotten. Other 
temples they have — who knows to what 
divinities? 

And he that was destined alone of 
men to come to the City of Never was 
well content to behold it as he trotted 
down its agate street, with the wings of 
his hippogriff furled, seeing at either side 
of him marvel on marvel of which even 
China is ignorant. Then as he neared 
the city's further rampart by which no 

How One came to th0 102 

City of Never 



The Book of Wonder 

inhabitant stirred, and looked in a direc- 
tion to which no houses faced with any 
rose-pink windows, he suddenly saw far- 
oflF, dwarfing the mountains, an even 
greater city. Whether that city was 
built upon the twilight or whether it rose 
from the coasts of some other world he 
did not know. He saw it dominate the 
City of Never, and strove to reach it; 
but at this unmeasured home of unknown 
colossi the hippogriff shied frantically, 
and neither the magic halter nor any- 
thing that he did could make the monster 
face it. At last, from the City of Never^s 
lonely outskirts where no inhabitants 
walked, the rider turned slowly earth- 
wards, he knew now why all the windows 
faced this way — the denizens of the 
twilight gazed at the world and not at a 
greater than them. Then from the last 
step of the earthward stairway, like lead 
past the Under Pits and down the glit- 
tering face of Toldenarba, down from 
the overshadowed glories of the gold- 
tipped City of Never and out of perpetual 
twilight, swooped the man on his winged 

J03 How One came to the 

City of Never 



The Book of Wonder 

monster: the wind that slept at the time 
leaped up like a dog at their onrush, it 
uttered a cry and ran past them. Down 
on the World it was morning; night was 
roaming away with his cloak trailed be- 
hind him, white mists turned over and 
over as he went, the orb was grey but it 
gUttered, lights blinked surprisingly in 
early windows, forth over wet, dim fields 
went cows from their houses: even in 
this hour touched the fields again the 
feet of the hippogriff. And the moment 
that the man dismounted and took off 
his magic halter the hippogriff flew slant- 
ing away with a whirr, going back to some 
airy dancing-place of his people. 

And he that surmounted glittering 
Toldenarba and came alone of men to 
the City of Never has his name and his 
fame among nations; but he and the 
people of that twilit city well know two 
things unguessed by other men, they that 
there is a city fairer than theirs, and 
he — a deed unaccomplished. 



How One came to the 104 

City of Never 




The Coronation of 
Mr. Thomas Shap 

jt was the occupation of 
Mr. Thomas Shap to per- 
suade customers that the 
goods were genuine and of 
an excellent quality, and 
that as regards the price their unspoken 
will was consulted. And in order to carry- 
on this occupation he went by train very 
early every morning some few miles 
nearer to the City from the suburb in 
which he slept. This was the use to which 
he put his life. 

From the moment when he first per- 
ceived (not as one reads a thing in a book, 
but as truths are revealed to one's in- 
stinct) the very beastliness of his occu- 
pation, and of the house that he slept 
in, its shape, make and pretensions, and 
of even the clothes that he wore; from 

105 The Coronation of 

Mr. Thomas Shap 



The Book of Wonder 

that moment he withdrew his dreams 
from it, his fancies, his ambitions, every- 
thing in fact except that ponderable Mr. 
Shap that dressed in a frock-coat, bought 
tickets and handled money and could in 
turn be handled by the statistician. The 
priest's share in Mr. Shap, the share of 
the poet, never caught the early train 
to the City at all. 

He used to take little flights with his 
fancy at first, dwelt all day in his dreamy 
way on fields and rivers lying in the sun- 
light where it strikes the world more 
brilliantly further South. And then he 
began to imagine butterflies there; after 
that, silken people and the temples they 
built to their gods. 

They noticed that he was silent, and 
even absent at times, but they found no 
fault with his behaviour with customers, 
to whom he remained as plausible as of 
old. So he dreamed for a year, and his 
fancy gained strength as he dreamed. 
He still read halfpenny papers in the 
train, still discussed the passing day's 
ephemeral topic, still voted at elections, 

The Coronation of IQft 

Mr. Thomas Shap 



The Book of Wonder 

though he no longer did these things 
with the whole Shap — his soul was no 
longer in them. 

He had had a pleasant year, his imagi- 
nation was all new to him still, and it 
had often discovered beautiful things 
away where it went, southeast at the 
edge of the twiUght. And he had a 
matter-of-fact and logical mind, so that 
he often said, ^^Why should I pay my 
twopence at the electric theatre when I 
can see all sorts of things quite easily 
without? '' Whatever he did was logical 
before anything else, and those that 
knew him always spoke of Shap as ^'a 
sound, sane, level-headed man." 

On far the most important day of his 
life he went as usual to town by the 
early train to sell plausible articles to 
customers, while the spiritual Shap 
roamed off to fanciful lands. As he 
walked from the station, dreamy but 
wide awake, it suddenly struck him that 
the real Shap was not the one walking 
to Business in black and ugly clothes, 
but he who roamed along a jungle ^s 

107 The Coronation of 

Mr. Thomas Shap 



The Book of Wonder 

edge near the ramparts of an old and 
Eastern city that rose up sheer from the 
sand, and against which the desert lapped 
with one eternal wave. He used to fancy 
the name of that city was Larkar. ''After 
all, the fancy is as real as the body/^ he 
said with perfect logic. It was a danger- 
ous theory. 

For that other life that he led he real- 
ized, as in Business, the importance and 
value of method. He did not let his 
fancy roam too far until it perfectly knew 
its first surroundings. Particularly he 
avoided the jungle — he was not afraid 
to meet a tiger there (after all it was not 
real), but stranger things might crouch 
there. Slowly he built up Larkar: ram- 
part by rampart, towers for archers, 
gateway of brass, and all. And then 
one day he argued, and quite rightly, 
that all the silk-clad people in its 
streets, their camels, their wares that 
came from Inkustahn, the city itself, 
were all the things of his will — and 
then he made himself King. He smiled 
after that when people did not raise 

The Coronation of JQS 

Mr. Thomas Shop 



The Book of Wonder 

their hats to him in the street, as 
he walked from the station to Business; 
but he was sufficiently practical to recog- 
nize that it was better not to talk of this 
to those that only knew him as Mr. Shap. 
Now that he was King in the city of 
Larkar and in all the desert that lay to 
the East and North he sent his fancy to 
wander further afield. He took the regi- 
ments of his camel-guard and went jing- 
ling out of Larkar, with little silver bells 
under the camels' chins, and came to 
other cities far-off on the yellow sand, 
with clear white walls and towers, up- 
lifting themselves in the sun. Through 
their gates he passed with his three silken 
regiments, the light-blue regiment of the 
camel-guard being upon his right and the 
green regiment riding at his left, the lilac 
regiment going on before. When he had 
gone through the streets of any city and 
observed the ways of its people, and had 
seen the way that the sunlight struck its 
towers, he would proclaim himself King 
there, and then ride on in fancy. So he 
passed from city to city and from land 

109 The Coronation of 

Mr. Thomas Shap 



The Book of Wonder 

to land. Clear-sighted though Mr. Shap 
was, I think he overlooked the lust of 
aggrandizement to which kings have so 
often been victims: and so it was that 
when the first few cities had opened their 
gleaming gates and he saw peoples pros- 
trate before his camel, and spearmen 
cheering along countless balconies, and 
priests come out to do him reverence, 
he that had never had even the lowliest 
authority in the familiar world became 
unwisely insatiate. He let his fancy ride 
at inordinate speed, he forsook method, 
scarce was he king of a land but he 
yearned to extend his borders; so he 
journeyed deeper and deeper into the 
wholly unknown. The concentration 
that he gave to this inordinate progress 
through countries of which history is 
ignorant and cities so fantastic in their 
bulwarks that, though their inhabitants 
were human, yet the foe that they feared 
seemed something less or more; the 
amazement with which he beheld gates 
and towers unknown even to art, and 
furtive people thronging intricate ways 

The Coronation of 1X0 

^Ir. Thomas Shap 



The Book of Wonder 

to acclaim him as their sovereign; all 
these things began to affect his capacity 
for Business. He knew as well as any 
that his fancy could not rule these beauti- 
ful lands unless that other Shap, however 
unimportant, were well sheltered and fed: 
and shelter and food meant money, and 
money, Business. His was more like the 
mistake of some gambler with cunning 
schemes who overlooks human greed. 
One day his fancy, riding in the morning, 
came to a city gorgeous as the sunrise, 
in whose opalescent wall were gates of 
gold, so huge that a river poured between 
the bars, floating in, when the gates were 
opened, large galleons under sail. Thence 
there came dancing out a company with 
instruments, and made a melody all 
round the wall; that morning Mr. Shap, 
the bodily Shap in London, forgot the 
train to town. 

Until a year ago he had never imagined 
at all; it is not to be wondered at that all 
these things now newly seen by his fancy 
should play tricks at first with the memory 
of even so sane a man. He gave up read- 

\\\ The Coronation of 

Mr. Thomas Shap 



The Book of Wonder 

ing the papers altogether, he lost all in- 
terest in politics, he cared less and less 
for things that were going on around him. 
This unfortunate missing of the morning 
train even occurred again, and the firm 
spoke to him severely about it. But he 
had his consolation. Were not Arathrion 
and Argun Zeerith and all the level 
coasts of Oora his? And even as the firm 
found fault with him his fancy watched 
the yaks on weary journeys, slow specks 
against the snow-fields, bringing tribute; 
and saw the green eyes of the mountain 
men who had looked at him strangely in 
the city of Nith when he had entered it 
by the desert door. Yet his logic did not 
forsake him; he knew well that his strange 
subjects did not exist, but he was prouder 
of having created them with his brain, 
than merely of ruling them only; thus in 
his pride he felt himself something more 
great than a king, he did not dare to 
think what! He went into the temple of 
the city of Zorra and stood some time 
there alone: all the priests kneeled to 
him when he came away. 

The Coronation of 112 

Mr. Thomas Shop 



The Book of Wonder 

He cared less and less for the things 
we care about, for the affairs of Shap, a 
business-man in London. He began to 
despise the man with a royal contempt. 

One day when he sat in Sowla, the city 
of the Thuls, throned on one amethyst, 
he decided, and it was proclaimed on the 
moment by silver trumpets all along the 
land, that he would be crowned as king 
over all the lands of Wonder. 

By that old temple where the Thuls 
were worshipped, year in, year out, for 
over a thousand years, they pitched pa- 
vilions in the open air. The trees that 
blew there threw out radiant scents un- 
known in any countries that know the 
map; the stars blazed fiercely for that 
famous occasion. A fountain hiurled up, 
clattering, ceaselessly into the air arm- 
fuls on armfuls of diamonds, a deep hush 
waited for the golden trumpets, the holy 
coronation night was come. At the top 
of those old, worn steps, going down we 
know not whither, stood the king in the 
emerald-and-amethyst cloak, the ancient 
garb of the Thuls; beside him lay that 

1 13 The Coronation of 

Mr. Thomas Shop 



The Book of Wonder 

Sphinx that for the last few weeks had 
advised him in his affairs. 

Slowly, with music when the trumpets 
sounded, came up towards him from we 
know not where, one-hundred-and-twenty 
archbishops, twenty angels and two arch- 
angels, with that terrific crown, the dia- 
dem of the Thuls. They knew as they 
came up to him that promotion awaited 
them all because of this night's work. 
Silent, majestic, the king awaited them. 

The doctors downstairs were sitting 
over their supper, the warders softly 
slipped from room to room, and when in 
that cosy dormitory of Hanwell they saw 
the king still standing erect and royal, 
his face resolute, they came up to him 
and addressed him: '^Go to bed," they 
said — "pretty bed." So he lay down 
and soon was fast asleep: the great day 
was over. 



The Coronation of 1 14 

Mr. Thomas Shop 




Thk Coronation of Mu. Thomas Shap 



Chu-Bu andSheemish 




!t was the custom on Tues- 
days in the temple of Chu- 
bu for the priests to enter at 
evening and chant, ^^ There 
is none but Chu-bu.'' 
And all the people rejoiced and cried 
out, ^^ There is none but Chu-bu." And 
honey was offered to Chu-bu, and maize 
and fat. Thus was he magnified. 

Chu-bu was an idol of some antiquity, 
as may be seen from the colour of the 
wood. He had been carved out of ma- 
hogany, and after he was carved he had 
been polished. Then they had set him 
up on the diorite pedestal with the 
brazier in front of it for burning spices 
and the flat gold plates for fat. Thus 
they worshipped Chu-bu. 

He must have been there for over a 
hundred years when one day the priests 
came in with another idol into the temple 



115 



Chu-bu and 
Sheemish 



The Book of Wonder 

of Chu-bu, and set it up on a pedestal 
near Chu-bu's and sang, "There is also 
Sheemish." 

And all the people rejoiced and cried 
out, "There is also Sheemish." 

Sheemish was palpably a modern idol, 
and although the wood was stained with 
a dark-red dye, you could see that he 
had only just been carved. And honey 
was offered to Sheemish as well as Chu-bu, 
and also maize and fat. 

The fury of Chu-bu knew no time- 
limit; he was furious all that night, and 
next day he was furious still. The situa- 
tion called for immediate miracles. To 
devastate the city with a pestilence and 
kill all his priests was scarcely within his 
power, therefore he wisely concentrated 
such divine powers as he had in command- 
ing a little earthquake. "Thus," thought 
Chu-bu, "will I reassert myself as the 
only god, and men shall spit upon 
Sheemish.'' 

Chu-bu willed it and willed it and still 
no earthquake came, when suddenly he 
was aware that the hated Sheemish was 

Chu-bu and HQ 

Sheemish 



The Book of Wonder 

daring to attempt a miracle too. He 
ceased to busy himself about the earth- 
quake and listened, or shall I say felt, 
for what Sheemish was thinking; for gods 
are aware of what passes in the mind by 
a sense that is other than any of our five. 
Sheemish v/as trying to make an earth- 
quake too. 

The new god's motive was probably to 
assert himself. I doubt if Chu-bu under- 
stood or cared for his motive, it was 
sufficient for an idol already aflame with 
jealousy that his detestable rival was on 
the verge of a miracle. All the power of 
Chu-bu veered round at once and set dead 
against an earthquake, even a little one. 
It was thus in the temple of Chu-bu for 
some time, and then no earthquake came. 

To be a god and to fail to achieve a 
miracle is a despairing sensation; it is as 
though among men one should determine 
upon a hearty sneeze and as though no 
sneeze should come; it is as though one 
should try to swim in heavy boots or 
remember a name that is utterly forgot- 
ten: all these pains were Sheemish's. 

WJ Chu-bu and 

Sheemish 



The Book of Wonder 

And upon Tuesday the priests came in, 
and the people, and they did worship 
Chu-bu and offered fat to him, saying, 
'^0 Chu-bu who made everything/^ and 
then the priests sang, ^^ There is also 
Sheemish,'' and again the people rejoiced 
and cried out, '^ There is also Sheemish"; 
and Chu-bu was put to shame and spake 
not for three days. 

Now there were holy birds in the 
temple of Chu-bu, and when the third 
day was come and the night thereof, it 
was as it were revealed to the mind of 
Chu-bu, that there was dirt upon the 
head of Sheemish. 

And Chu-bu spake unto Sheemish as 
speak the gods, moving no lips nor yet 
disturbing the silence, saying, ^^ There is 
dirt upon thy head, Sheemish." All 
night long he muttered again and again, 
'^There is dirt upon Sheemish's head." 
And when it was dawn and voices were 
heard far off, Chu-bu became exultant 
with Earth's awakening things, and cried 
out till the sun was high, '^Dirt, dirt, 
dirt, upon the head of Sheemish," and 

Chu-hu and Hg 

Sheemish 



The Book of Wonder 

at noon he said, ''So Sheemish would be a 
god/' Thus was Sheemish confounded. 

And with Tuesday one came and 
washed his head with rose-water, and he 
was worshipped again when they sang 
''There is also Sheemish/' And yet was 
Chu-bu content, for he said, "The head 
of Sheemish has been defiled," and again, 
"His head was defiled, it is enough/' 
And one evening lo! there was dirt on 
the head of Chu-bu also, and the thing 
was perceived of Sheemish. 

It is not with the gods as it is with 
men. We are angry one with another and 
turn from our anger again, but the wrath 
of the gods is enduring. Chu-bu remem- 
bered and Sheemish did not forget. 
They spake as we do not speak, in silence 
yet heard of each other, nor were their 
thoughts as our thoughts. We should 
not judge them by merely human stand- 
ards. All night long they spake and all 
night said these words only: "Dirty 
Chu-bu,'' "Dirty Sheemish." "Dirty 
Chu-bu," "Dirty Sheemish," all night 
long. Their wrath had not tired at dawn, 

1 1Q Chu-bu and 

Sheemish 



The Book of Wonder 

and neither had wearied of his accusa- 
tion. And gradually Chu-bu came to 
realize that he was nothing more than the 
equal of Sheemish. All gods are jealous, 
but this equality with the upstart Sheem- 
ish, a thing of painted wood a hundred 
years newer than Chu-bu, and this wor- 
ship given to Sheemish in Chu-bu's own 
temple, were particularly bitter. Chu-bu 
was jealous even for a god; and when 
Tuesday came again, the third day of 
Sheemish's worship, Chu-bu could bear 
it no longer. He felt that his anger must 
be revealed at all costs, and he returned 
with all the vehemence of his will to 
achieving a little earthquake. The wor- 
shippers had just gone from his temple 
when Chu-bu settled his will to attain 
this miracle, now and then his medita- 
tions were disturbed by the now familiar 
dictum, "Dirty Chu-bu,'' but Chu-bu 
willed ferociously, not even stopping to 
say what he longed to say and had al- 
ready said nine hundred times, and pres- 
ently even these interruptions ceased. 
They ceased because Sheemish had 

Chu-bu and 120 

Sheemish 



The Book of Wonder 

returned to a project that he had never 
definitely abandoned, the desire to assert 
himself and exalt himself over Chu-bu 
by performing a miracle, and the district 
being volcanic he had chosen a little 
earthquake as the miracle most easily 
accomplished by a small god. 

Now an earthquake that is commanded 
by two gods has double the chance of 
fulfilment than when it is willed by one, 
and an incalculably greater chance than 
when two gods are pulling different ways; 
as, to take the case of older and greater 
gods, when the sun and the moon pull in 
the same direction we have the biggest 
tides. 

Chu-bu knew nothing of the theory of 
tides, and was too much occupied with 
his miracle to notice what Sheemish was 
doing. And suddenly the miracle was 
an accomplished thing. 

It was a very local earthquake, for 
there are other gods than Chu-bu or 
even Sheemish, and it was only a little 
one as the gods had willed, but it loos- 
ened some monoliths in a colonnade that 

121 Chu-bu and 

Sheemish 



The Book of Wonder 

supported one side of the temple and the 
whole of one wall fell in, and the low huts 
of the people of that city were shaken a 
little and some of their doors were jammed 
so that they would not open; it was 
enough, and for a moment it seemed that 
it was all; neither Chu-bu nor Sheemish 
conamanded there should be more, but 
they had set in motion an old law older 
than Chu-bu, the law of gravity that 
that colonnade had held back for a hun- 
dred years, and the temple of Chu-bu 
quivered and then stood still, swayed 
once and was overthrown, on the heads 
of Chu-bu and Sheemish. 

No one rebuilt it, for nobody dared 
go near such terrible gods. Some said 
that Chu-bu wrought the miracle, but 
some said Sheemish, and thereof schism 
was born; the weakly amiable, alarmed 
by the bitterness of rival sects, sought 
compromise and said that both had 
wrought it, but no one guessed the truth 
that the thing was done in rivalry. 

And a saying arose, and both sects 
held this belief in common, that whoso 

Chu-bu and 122 

Sheemish 



The Book of Wonder 

toucheth Chu-bu shall die or whoso 
looketh upon Sheemish. 

That is how Chu-bu came into my 
possession when I travelled once beyond 
the Hills of Ting. I found him in the 
fallen temple of Chu-bu with his hands 
and toes sticking up out of the rubbish, 
lying upon his back, and in that attitude 
just as I found him I keep him to this 
day on my mantelpiece, as he is less 
liable to be upset that way. Sheemish 
was broken, so I left him where he was. 

And there is something so helpless 
about Chu-bu with his fat hands stuck 
up in the aii' that sometimes I am moved 
out of compassion to bow down to him 
and pray, saying, ^'0 Chu-bu, thou that 
made everything, help thy servant.'^ 

Chu-bu cannot do much, though once 
I am sure that at a game of bridge he 
sent me the ace of trumps after I had 
not held a card worth having for the 
whole of the evening. And chance could 
have done as much as that for me, but I 
do not tell this to Chu-bu. 



123 Chu-bu and 

Sheemish 




The Wonderful 
Window 

)he old man in the Oriental- 
looking robe was being 
moved on by the police, and 
it was this that attracted to 
him and the parcel under 
his arm the attention of Mr. Sladden, 
whose livelihood was earned in the em- 
porium of Messrs. Margin and Chater, 
that is to say in their establishment. 

Mr. Sladden had the reputation of 
being the silHest young man in Business; 
a touch of romance — a mere suggestion 
of it — would send his eyes gazing away 
as though the walls of the emporium 
were of gossamer and London itself a 
myth, instead of attending to customers. 
Merely the fact that the dirty piece 
of paper that wrapped the old man's 
parcel was covered with Arabic writing 



The 

Wonderful Window 



124 



The Book of Wonder 

was enough to give Mr. Sladden the idea 
of romance, and he followed until the 
little crowd fell off and the stranger 
stopped by the kerb and unwrapped his 
parcel and prepared to sell the thing that 
was inside it. It was a little window in 
old wood with small panes set in lead; 
it was not much more than a foot in 
breadth and was under two feet long. 
Mr. Sladden had never before seen a 
window sold in the street, so he asked 
the price of it. 

'^ Its price is all you possess," said 
the old man. 

'^ Where did you get it?" said Mr. 
Sladden, for it was a strange window. 

^'I gave all that I possessed for it in 
the streets of Baghdad." 

''Did you possess much?" said Mr. 
Sladden. 

''I had all that I wanted," he said, 
except this window." 

It must be a good window," said the 
young man. 

"It is a magical window," said the old 
one. 

125 ^fte 

Wonderful Window 



(C 



The Book of bonder 

"I have only ten shillings on me, but 
I have fifteen-and-six at home." 

The old man thought for a while. 

^^Then twenty-five-and-sixpence is the 
price of the window," he said. 

It was only when the bargain was 
completed and the ten shillings paid and 
the strange old man was coming for his 
fifteen-and-six and to fit the magical 
window into his only room that it oc- 
curred to Mr. Sladden^s mind that he 
did not want a window. And then they 
were at the door of the house in which he 
rented a room^ and it seemed too late to 
explain. 

The stranger demanded privacy while 
he fitted up the window, so Mr. Sladden 
remained outside the door at the top of 
a little flight of creaky stairs. He heard 
no sound of hammering. 

And presently the strange old man 
came out with his faded yellow robe and 
bis great beard, and his eyes on far-off 
places. "It is finished," he said, and he 
and the young man parted. And whether 
he remained a spot of colour and an 

The 126 

Wonderful Window 



The Book of Wonder 

anachronism in London, or whether he 
ever came again to Baghdad, and what 
dark hands kept on the circulation of his 
twenty-five-and-six, Mr. Sladden never 
knew. 

Mr. Sladden entered the bare-boarded 
room in which he slept and spent all his 
indoor hours between closing-time and 
the hour at which Messrs. Mergin and 
Chater commenced. To the Penates of 
so dingy a room his neat frock-coat must 
have been a continual wonder. Mr. 
Sladden took it off and folded it care- 
fully; and there was the old man's win- 
dow rather high up in the wall. There 
had been no window in that wall hitherto, 
nor any ornament at all but a small cup- 
board, so when Mr. Sladden had put his 
frock-coat safely away he glanced through 
his new window. It was where his cup- 
board had been in which he kept his tea- 
things: they were all standing on the 
table now. When Mr. Sladden glanced 
through his new window it was late in a 
summer's evening; the butterflies some 
while ago would have closed their wings, 

127 The 

Wonderful Window 



The Book of Wonder 

though the bat would scarcely yet be 
drifting abroad — but this was in Lon- 
don : the shops were shut and street-lamps 
not yet Hghted. 

Mr. Sladden rubbed his eyes, then 
rubbed the window, and still he saw a 
sky of blazing blue, and far, far down 
beneath him, so that no sound came up 
from it or smoke of chimneys, a mediseval 
city set with towers. Brown roofs and 
cobbled streets, and then white walls and 
buttresses, and beyond them bright green 
fields and tiny streams. On the towers 
archers lolled, and along the walls were 
pikemen, and now and then a wagon 
went down some old-world street and 
lumbered through the gateway and out 
to the country, and now and then a 
wagon drew up to the city from the mist 
that was rolling with evening over the 
fields. Sometimes folk put their heads 
out of lattice windows, sometimes some 
idle troubadour seemed to sing, and no- 
body hurried or troubled about anything. 
Airy and dizzy though the distance was, 
for Mr. Sladden seemed higher above the 

The 128 

Wonderful Window 



1 



The Book of Wonder 

city than any cathedral gargoyle, yet 
one clear detail he obtained as a clue: 
the banners floating from every tower 
over the idle archers had little golden 
dragons all over a pure white field. 

He heard motor-buses roar by his other 
window, he heard the newsboys howling. 

Mr. Sladden grew dreamier than ever 
after that on the premises, in the estab- 
lishment, of Messrs. Mergin and Chater. 
But in one matter he was wise and wake- 
ful: he made continuous and careful 
inquiries about golden dragons on a 
white flag, and talked to no one of his 
wonderful window. He came to know 
the flags of every king in Europe, he 
even dabbled in history, he made in- 
quiries at shops that understood heraldry, 
but nowhere could he learn any trace of 
little dragons or on a field argent. And 
when it seemed that for him alone those 
golden dragons had fluttered he came 
to love them as an exile in some desert 
might love the lilies of his home or as a 
sick man might love swallows when he 
cannot easily live to another spring. 

129 ^''^ 

Wonderful Window 



The Book, of Wonder 

As soon as Messrs. Mergin and Chater 
closed, Mr. Sladden used to go back to 
his dingy room and gaze through the 
wonderful window until it grew dark in 
the city and the guard would go with a 
lantern round the ramparts and the 
night came up like velvet, full of strange 
stars. Another clue he tried to obtain 
one night by jotting down the shapes of 
the constellations, but this led him no 
further, for they were unlike any that 
shone upon either hemisphere. 

Each day as soon as he woke he went 
first to the wonderful window, and there 
was the city, diminutive in the distance, 
all shining in the morning, and the golden 
dragons dancing in the sun, and the 
archers stretching themselves or swinging 
their arms on the tops of the windy 
towers. The window would not open, so 
that he never heard the songs that the 
troubadours sang down there beneath 
gilded balconies; he did not even hear 
the belfries' chimes, though he saw the 
jackdaws routed every hour from their 
homes. And the first thing that he always 

The 130 

Wonderful Window 



The Book of Wonder 

did was to cast his eye round all the little 
towers that rose up from the ramparts 
to see that the little golden dragons were 
flying there on their flags. And when he 
saw them flaunting themselves on white 
folds from every tower against the mar- 
vellous deep blue of the sky he dressed 
contentedly, and, taking one last look, 
went off to his work with a glory in his 
mind. It would have been difficult for 
the customers of Messrs. Mergin and 
Chater to guess the precise ambition of 
Mr. Sladden as he walked before them in 
his neat frock-coat : it was that he might 
be a man-at-arms or an archer in order 
to fight for the little golden dragons that 
flew on a white flag for an unknown king 
in an inaccessible city. At first Mr. 
Sladden used to walk round and round 
the mean street that he Hved in, but he 
gained no clue from that; and soon he 
noticed that quite different winds blew 
below his wonderful window from those 
that blew on the other side of the house. 
In August the evenings began to grow 
shorter: this was the very remark that 

131 ^'"f 

Wonderful Window 



The Book of Wonder 

the other employes made to him at the 
emporium, so that he almost feared that 
they suspected his secret, and he had 
much less time for the wonderful window, 
for lights were few down there and they 
blinked out early. 

One morning late in August, just be- 
fore he went to Business, Mr. Sladden 
saw a company of pikemen running down 
the cobbled road towards the gateway of 
the mediaeval city — Golden Dragon City 
he used to call it alone in his own mind, 
but he never spoke of it to anyone. The 
next thing that he noticed was that the 
archers on the towers were talking a 
good deal together and were handling 
round bundles of arrows in addition to 
the quivers which they wore. Heads 
were thrust out of windows more than 
usual, a woman ran out and called some 
children indoors, a knight rode down the 
street, and then more pikemen appeared 
along the walls, and all the jackdaws 
were in the air. In the street no trouba- 
dour sang. Mr. Sladden took one look 
along the towers to see that the flags 

The 132 

Wonderful Window 



The Book of Wonder 

were flying, and all the golden dragons 
were streaming in the wind. Then he 
had to go to Business. He took a 'bus 
back that evening and ran upstairs. 
Nothing seemed to be happening in 
Golden Dragon City except a crowd in 
the cobbled street that led down to the 
gateway; the archers seemed to be reclin- 
ing as usual lazily in their towers, then a 
white flag went down with all its golden 
dragons; he did not see at first that all 
the archers were dead. The crowd was 
pouring towards him, towards the precipi- 
tous wall from which he looked, men 
with a white flag covered with golden 
dragons were moving backwards slowly, 
men with another flag were pressing them, 
a flag on which there was one huge red 
bear. Another banner went down upon 
a tower. Then he saw it all: the golden 
dragons were being beaten — his little 
golden dragons. The men of the bear 
were coming under the window; what- 
ever he threw from that height would 
fall with terrific force: fire-irons, coal, his 
clock, whatever he had — he would fight 

133 The 

Wonderful Window 



The Book of Wonder 

for his little golden dragons yet. A flame 
broke out from one of the towers and 
licked the feet of a reclining archer; he 
did not stir. And now the alien standard 
was out of sight directly underneath. 
Mr. Sladden broke the panes of the won- 
derful window and wrenched away with a 
poker the lead that held them. Just as 
the glass broke he saw a banner covered 
with golden dragons fluttering still, and 
then as he drew back to hurl the poker 
there came to him the scent of mysterious 
spices, and there was nothing there, not 
even the daylight, for behind the frag- 
ments of the wonderful window was 
nothing but that small cupboard in which 
he kept his tea-things. 

And though Mr. Sladden is older now 
and knows more of the world, and even 
has a Business of his own, he has never 
been able to buy such another window, 
and has not ever since, either from books 
or men, heard any rumour at all of 
Golden Dragon City, 



The 134 

Wonderful Window 



Epilogue 



H'ere the fourteenth Episode of the 
Book of Wonder endeth and here the 
relating of the Chronicles of Little Ad- 
ventures at the Edge of the World. I 
take farewell of my readers. But it may 
be we shall even meet again, for it is 
still to be told how the gnomes robbed 
the fairies, and of the vengeance that 
the fairies took, and how even the gods 
themselves were troubled thereby in 
their sleep; and how the King of Ool 
insulted the troubadours, thinking him- 
self safe among his scores of archers and 
hundreds of halberdiers, and how the 
troubadours stole to his towers by night, 
and under his battlements by the light 
of the moon made that king ridiculous 
for ever in song. But for this I must first 
return to the Edge of the World. Behold, 
the caravans start. 



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